site.btaMemory of Bulgarian Killed in Attack 5 Years Ago Honoured in Hanau

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev, Consul General of Bulgaria in Frankfurt Diana Popova, and former Bulgarian Ambassador to Germany (2004-2008) Dr. Meglena Plugchieva commemorated Kaloyan Velkov, one of the nine victims of the February 19, 2020 attack in Hanau, Hesse. The event marked five years since the tragedy.

On February 19, 2020, a 43-year-old German man attacked young people with a migrant background in a restaurant, killing 9 people and then shooting himself and his mother.

On the lamp posts in the square in front of the Town Hall with the monument to the Brothers Grimm, who were born in the town, portraits of the dead are placed with the inscription "Say their names". Among them is the portrait of 33-year-old Kaloyan Velkov, who had been living in Germany for 2 years and working as a bartender in Hanau to support his family with a 7-year-old child in Bulgaria.

Earlier, Bulgarian Consul General Diana Popova attended the ceremony in Hanau with the participation of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in memory of the victims of the mass murder. 

Valchev and Plugchieva are in Germany at the invitation of the Consulate General of Bulgaria in Frankfurt am Main to meet representatives of the Bulgarian community of about 120,000 people in the consular district, which includes the provinces of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.

On Thursday, the Director General of BTA will speak on the topic "BTA - the real news for Bulgarians abroad" and the former ambassador to Germany on the topic "Bulgaria's membership in the euro area - pros and cons".