Bulgaria’s army yesterday stepped in to buttress the southwestern border with Macedonia, which has been hit in recent days by an unprecedented influx of migrants.
Twenty-five soldiers and light armored vehicles are to be deployed at Bulgaria’s four border checkpoints with Macedonia, a Bulgarian Ministry of Defence operations and training deputy chief told BNR public radio.
“Our task will be to reinforce the controls already implemented by border police,” Nikolay Karaivanov said.
Photo: Reuters
He said the number of soldiers might be increased at a later stage if necessary.
Asked to provide details about the tasks to be performed at the border, ministry public affairs chief Daniel Stefanov said the soldiers “will perform training-related tasks far from the immediate border line, inside our territory.”
“We do not envisage joint patrols with border police,” he said, adding that the equipment is to include mostly armored sports utility vehicles and trucks rather than armored personnel carriers, and no tanks are to be sent.
Until now, Bulgaria has focused on reinforcing control of its southeastern border with Turkey by sending more than 1,000 extra police, as well as expanding a 30km barrier to prevent migrants from entering.
However, an influx of thousands of refugees entering neighboring Macedonia from Greece over past weeks has prompted the country to shift its focus.
Bulgarian Minister of Interior Rumyana Bachvarova yesterday estimated that the risk of seeing a migrant influx similar to that in Macedonia was “relatively low.”
“Everyone knows that the Bulgarian borders are guarded very well,” Bachvarova told BNR.
Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Geneva said up to 3,000 people are expected to cross into Macedonia every day in coming months, led by Syrians fleeing their war-torn homeland and surrounding countries.
“We do not see any end to the influx of people in coming months,” UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, citing continued violence in both Iraq and Syria and “worsening conditions” for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
The 28 member states of the EU must ensure “equitable distribution” of asylum seekers, she told a news briefing in Geneva, adding: “We honestly believe if correct measures are taken, this is something that Europe can handle.”
In other developments, Hungary wants more EU funds to cope with the worst refugee crisis since World War II, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff was quoted as saying yesterday.
He said what has currently been distributed was done in a manner that was humiliating.
Hungary is part of the EU’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel and borders non-EU Serbia and Ukraine, making it attractive to migrants. It has registered more than 100,000 migrants so far this year, compared with 43,000 last year.
On Monday alone, police registered 2,093 migrants, the highest daily tally so far this year, including Syrians, Afghans and Bangladeshis.
In the southern county of Csongrad, a main transit route along the Serb border, 1,930 migrants were detained, including 309 children.
Hungary is building a fence on its southern border with Serbia to fend off the rising tide of migrants.
The European Commission has pledged nearly 8 million euros (US$9.2 million) in aid and various other measures for Hungary. However, Janos Lazar, Orban’s chief of staff, told the Magyar Hirlap newspaper that more was needed.
“The European Union distributes border protection funds in a humiliating way. Old member states have nicked the money from new members,” Lazar was quoted as saying in an interview.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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