Bulgaria sent 350 troops to its border with Turkey to support police due to growing pressure on migrant flows, Defence Minister Georgi Panayotov said.

“As of Monday, there are soldiers at the Bulgarian-Turkish border to support the border police. 350 troops have been deployed with about 40 pieces of equipment,” he said in an interview with bTV.

More than 6,500 people who entered Bulgaria illegally, mostly Afghans, have been arrested in Bulgaria from January to September, more than three times the number over the same period in 2020, according to the country’s Interior Ministry.

Bulgaria is located on the external land border of the European Union (EU), on the road for migrants and refugees who want to reach Europe. A barbed wire, damaged in many places, covers the 259 km long Bulgarian-Turkish border.

The Bulgarian Parliament had decided in August to send 400 to 700 troops to Bulgaria’s borders with Turkey and Greece to help build fences.

The poorest EU member, Bulgaria, has never accepted large numbers of asylum seekers, most of whom leave the country before even receiving an answer about their refugee status.

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