Migrants face beatings, threats and robbery in Bulgaria, says rights group

Migrants coming through Bulgaria have faced beatings, threats and other abuses by police, a rights groups reported on Friday. Refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq reported extortion, robbery, violence, threats of deportation and police dog attacks in a Oxfam-funded study by the Belgrade Center for Human Rights. Most of the alleged abuses took place in southern areas bordering Turkey, at holding centres inside Bulgaria and at the northwestern border with Serbia. However, the country’s interior minister Rumyana Bachvarova said:  "I hope that we can disprove these allegations. This is not our policy. I would never allow such acts.“

A group of around 10 interviewees witnessed a police officer holding a gun to a refugee’s forehead … Police caught up with the group, beat them, took their valuables, food and water

Belgrade Center for Human Rights report

Bulgaria is one of the countries on the frontline as Europe struggles to handle the region’s biggest influx of migrants and refugees since World War II. The stories of threats and violence come from interviews with more than 100 refugees arriving from Bulgaria in the Serbian border town of Dimitrovgrad in October. In one incident, it says: "Two Afghan men stated that (Bulgarian) police officers had shot at them … wounding two.” Meanwhile, Slovenia says that nearly 200,000 asylum seekers have entered the country since mid-October despite ta barrier being put up to stem the influx.

In light of the reported abuses, the European Union has to intervene and take concrete action to protect basic human rights within its borders.

Stefano Baldini, Oxfam director for South East Europe

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