Bulgarian authorities detained a total of 39 migrants in two operations taking place in different parts of the country. In the first instance, authorities detained nineteen people as they attempted to illegally cross the Bulgarian-Greek border near the village of Teplen in the municipality of Blagoevgrad over the weekend. The group consisted of six men, four women and nine children, all of them from Iraq, Darik radio informs. The ten adults appeared before the district court in Gotse Delchev on Tuesday. They are facing a minimum fine of BGN 100 or three-month suspended sentence and being returned to Greece. They said to border officials that they had come from Thessaloniki and did not want to stay in Bulgaria, their final destination being Germany or the UK. They identified themselves as Kurds living in Iraq who had been persecuted by Islamic State (IS) and claimed to have lost relatives who had been killed or kidnapped. They spend nearly a month and a half at the Idomeni refugee camp. The refugees had reached Turkey by airplane and from there they boarded a ship to Greece. In order to reach Bulgaria, they paid to be driven by a car for two hours and walked for another eight hours. The migrants are not willing to stay in Greece and they are ready to attempt crossing the border again. Some of them are even considering to go back to their homeland despite the risk. In the second instance, authorities detained twenty foreigners at the crossroad between the villages of Tvarditsa and Dimchevo near the city of Burgas. There were six women and three minors among the migrants, who identified themselves as coming from Afghanistan. The group was detained next to a vehicle bearing a foreign licence plate. The migrants have crossed the border illegally and were not in the possession of identity documents. They have been handed to the migration department of the police in Burgas.
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