Bulgarian border police have in the past month forced Syrian asylum seekers back to Turkey and beaten some of them, Human Rights Watch said today based on accounts by victims.
Human Rights Watch documented three separate incidents of summary returns from Bulgaria to Turkey involving at least 43 people, all Syrians. These incidents are consistent with the pushbacks to Turkey and abuse of asylum seekers and migrants by Bulgarian authorities that Human Rights Watch documented in an April 2014 report.
“Beating people who may be seeking asylum and then forcing them back across the border is plain wrong, and illegal,” said Lydia Gall, Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The EU should press Sofia to keep its borders open to Syrians and other asylum seekers and to put an end to these abusive practices.”
On August 28, Bulgarian border police caught a group of about 22 Syrians in a forest after they crossed the Bulgarian border, a member of the group told Human Rights Watch by phone in Turkey on September 11.
