Bulgaria uses police dogs, violence in refugee pushbacks: HRW

Human Rights Watch says Bulgaria is utilizing police canine and different violence to illegally push refugees again into Turkey.

A Bulgarian border policeman walks close to the barbed wire fence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border [File: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters]

A world rights group says Bulgarian authorities are attacking Afghan and different asylum seekers, utilizing police canine and different violence to illegally push them again over the border into Turkey.

Human Rights Watch stated on Thursday that the refugees reported being overwhelmed, robbed and stripped.

“Bulgarian authorities are brutally and summarily pushing again migrants and asylum-seekers throughout the land border with Turkey,” stated Michelle Randhawa, refugee and migrant rights officer at HRW.

“The European Union ought to make sure that Bulgaria instantly stops the unlawful and dehumanising pushbacks at its borders and permits asylum-seekers entry to honest asylum procedures.”

Bulgaria’s authorities didn't reply to HRW’s report. However officers have beforehand denied mistreating refugees.

Victims

HRW stated it interviewed 15 Afghans between November and April final 12 months who advised the organisation that they have been “victims of 19 pushbacks by Bulgarian authorities from Bulgaria to Turkey”.

In November final 12 months, Bulgaria’s defence ministry stated it was deploying troops and military autos alongside its border with Turkey to assist border police take care of a rising variety of refugees attempting to enter the nation.

The Balkan nation of seven million is situated on a significant route for refugees from the Center East and Afghanistan to Europe.

Solely a small variety of them plan to remain within the EU’s poorest member, utilizing Bulgaria as an alternative as a transit hall on their approach westward.