site.btaMore than 2,300 Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Transited Bulgaria since January 2016

More than 2,300 Unaccompanied
Refugee Minors Transited Bulgaria
since January 2016


Sofia, August 9 (BTA) - According to last week's data, there are some 150 unaccompanied refugee minors in Bulgaria, National Ombudsman Maya Manolova said during a discussion on the subject. More than 2,300 unaccompanied minors have transited this country since the beginning of 2016.

Over 500 children have been registered in recent months at the Voenna Rampa Refugee Centre in Sofia. Almost all of them have left the Centre by August and are unaccounted for.

In most cases, after being apprehended, the minors are offered to sign a declaration and to be accommodated at centres. Manolova argued that this is on the fringe of the law because it says that minors must be lodged in places expressly adapted for them, whereas such places are unavailable. In most cases, they are accommodated in separate rooms, and then they use shared dormitories with other aliens.

Interviewing such children, the Ombudsman found that they were waiting for human traffickers to take them to Western Europe. PK/LG
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