According to statistics of the interior ministry, the migrant flow through Bulgaria has decreased by 20 % in the first three months of this year. This was stated by Deputy Interior Minister Filip Gunev in an interview for the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) on Monday. In his words, this decrease was mainly due to the efforts of neighbouring Greece and Turkey to stem the migrant flow. As confirmation of his words, Gunev pointed that a month ago, around 2000 migrants used to cross from Turkey into Greece, but now their number has dropped to 200. In his opinion, no threat exists of migrants redirecting their routes through Bulgaria. This is due to the European mechanism for relocation, under which countries are committed to relocate nearly 100 000 refugees from Greece to other regions of Europe. Gunev added that despite its closure, the Western Balkan migrant route remains active and a large part of refugees are hoping to continue their journey further north. In his words, nearly 200 people manage to cross the Serbian-Hungarian border on a daily basis. As regards the vigilante patrols and citizen’s arrests at the border, he was firm that volunteers have neither the power to inspect identity documents nor the right to detain migrants. The deputy interior minister advised people living and working in the border regions to submit signals to police when they have suspicions of someone having crossed the border illegally. He made it clear that only officials of the ministry have power to patrol and detain migrants on the border. Gunev admitted that there have been cases of ministry officials involved in smuggling, but assured that this issue has been addressed. Last week, Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova noted that the migrant pressure exerted on the country’s borders has decreased by between 30 % and 36 % compared to the same period last year. Other figures of the ministry show that the number of migrants entering Bulgaria has decreased nearly in half since the beginning of the year.
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