First time on video. How a Syrian refugee was shot at the Bulgarian border
This is a joint investigation by Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde, Sky News, ARD, The Times and Free Europe (Svobodna Evropa). Source: Free Europe / Svobodna Evropa
Increased security and overlooked violence: how the state is coping with unprecedented numbers of migrants
Two months after announcing an unprecedented surge in the number of migrants trying to enter Bulgaria, the authorities reported that they had brought the situation under control. Official state data confirms this – there has been a noticeable increase in the number of offenders detained, and reports by the interior ministry of people detained in…
PUBLIC STATEMENT on the forcible expulsion of Afghani man granted humanitarian status in Bulgaria
“I thought how beautiful shoes are, there can never be ugly shoes in this world, all shoes are beautiful” – the words of A.H., an Afghan citizen granted humanitarian status in Bulgaria, pushed back in a particularly humiliating way to the territory of Turkey on 27-28 April this year, forced to walk barefoot with bleeding…
Afghani Refugees in Bulgaria: Update on a Forgotten Crisis
Commentary from Desislava Todorova – Lawyer and Board member of Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria The withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent abrupt takeover by the Taliban in the summer of 2021 triggered an increase of asylum applications (Актуална информация | ДЪРЖАВНА АГЕНЦИЯ ЗА БЕЖАНЦИТЕ (government.bg)) of Afghani nationals…
Escalation of Push-backs from Bulgaria’s borders
Commentary from Diana Radoslavova – Director of Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria Since the beginning of 2022, more than 150 reports of unlawful practices of forcible repulsion of asylum-seekers from the territory of Bulgaria, the so-called push-backs, have been received by the „Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria“ (CLA) and…
Video: testimonies of push-backs of asylum seekers from Bulgaria to Turkey
In 2022, Center for Legal Aid – Voice in Bulgaria and “Mission Wings” started to collect evidence of push-backs of asylum seekers from Bulgaria to Turkey, perpetrated by border officials. This video (in Arabic with English subtitles) contains a small part of the collected stories and will be followed by further materials documenting the human…
Bulgaria: Migrants Brutally Pushed Back at Turkish Border
(Brussels) – Bulgarian authorities are beating, robbing, stripping, and using police dogs to attack Afghan and other asylum seekers and migrants, then pushing them back to Turkey without any formal interview or asylum procedure, Human Rights Watch said today. “Bulgarian authorities are brutally and summarily pushing back migrants and asylum seekers across the land border with Turkey,”…
What is the migrants’ situation in Bulgaria and Europe amid the pandemic?
(Published also in Bulgarian here. We thank Deian Vladov for the courtesy translation) “The inrush of the COVID-19 pandemic has completely shifted away the focus from human rights and, in the context of survival, the fight for rights is now harder and even “inhumane”. “The right to health is not contrary to human rights altogether…
New Report on Applying Alternatives to Detention in Bulgaria Published by the CLA
Earlier this summer, the CLA published the report “Applying Engagement-Based Alternatives to Detention of Migrants in Bulgaria: Opportunities and Challenges”. The report is based on the work implementing the 2-year project “Protecting Migrants with Precarious Status: Decreasing the use of Detention and Applying Community-Based Alternatives”, funded by the European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM). From…
A Humane Alternative to Migrant Detention
Detention of migrants is a practice used extensively by authorities across Europe, even though “the use of detention for the purpose of removal should be limited […] and if the application of less coercive measures would not be sufficient,” according to the ‘Return Directive’. The European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM), co-created by the…