Bulgarian Deputy PM: Death of Afghan Migrant Near Border Occurred by Accident

Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva expressed no doubt that the recent death of an Afghan migrant near the country's border with Turkey had occurred by accident.

Last week, an Afghan migrant was killed near the town of Sredets after being hit from a ricocheted bullet, which had been fired as a warning shot by a border police officer.

Kuneva dismissed all comments made by politically engaged people, who put labels such as “murder” and “unprofessionalism”, as being against Bulgarian institutions.

She called for waiting on the official position, which is expected to come out on Monday, Kuneva said in an interview for Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

Until the expertise is released and the opposite is proven, it should be believed that border police, similarly to all Bulgarian institutions, acted professionally and in the interest of the state.

As regards the situation with the refugee crisis across Europe, she noted that it exerted an unprecedented pressure.

This posed difficulties even to countries with perfect administrations, such as Germany, in dealing with it.

According to her, Bulgaria's non-membership to the Schengen Area exerted additional pressure on the country.

In her opinion, it was clear that Bulgaria could not have as many border policemen as were needed to address the situation, which is escalating on a daily basis.

This is why additional means for guarding the border were being sought and Kuneva pointed to the temporary fence constructed on the Bulgarian-Turkish border as one of the possible solutions.

In her words, the Bulgarian state should focus its efforts on capturing the human smugglers as they were the true criminals and murderers.

According to her, the situation would have been different if Bulgaria had been granted accession to the Schengen Area.

Compared to their colleagues from Schengen member states, Bulgarian border policemen have less information as well as less financial and logistical support.

Kuneva explained that the guarding of the Bulgarian border has been organised in such a way to take into account the country's eventual accession to the Schengen Area.

She made it clear that Bulgaria is strictly applying and acting in compliance with the Schengen legislation

The Bulgarian deputy prime minister noted that the present situation in many member states did not allow for considering enlargement of the Schengen Area.

There was need for political courage and long-term vision to reverse the tide of public opinion.

It was important to realise that through enlarging the Schengen Area, the zone of security in Europe was further extended, Kuneva concluded.

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