Bulgaria Should Prepare for Refugee Influx– Deputy Watchdog Chair

Vasil Varbanov, Deputy Chair of Bulgaria's State Agency for Refugees, has cautioned about a new wave of refugees.

In a Monday interview for the Bulgarian National Television, Varbanov noted that the Agency had received a total of 726 applications for protection in the first 20 days of August, compared to a total of 320 applications in March and 311 in July.

He claimed that an influx of refugees would intensify pressure in the country, despite the fact that the Agency was much better prepared to cope with the situation as compared to last year.

"Last year we had a capacity to accomodate1230 people, 133 employees of the Agency, and three refugee centers – in Sofia, Pastrogor, and Banya. Now we have seven centers – new accommodation sites were opened in Sofia's districts of Voenna Rampa and Vrazhdebna, as well as in Harmanli and in Kovachevtsi," Varbanov declared.

He said that the integration of refugees was hard to achieve because it depended on the willingness of the people who usually saw Bulgaria as a transit country in their attempts to reach some country in Western Europe.

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