Amnesty International Urges Independent Probe into Bulgaria Migrant Death

A picture of the area where police had followed the migrant group before the incident took place. Photo by BGNES

Amnesty International has called on Bulgarian authorities for an independent and transparent probe into an incident which claimed the life of a supposedly Afghan migrant not far from the border with Turkey.

Preliminary versions of the Interior Ministry suggest the man died fro his wounds after a bullet fired as a warning shot by border police ricocheted and hit him.

AI's Barbora Cernu??kov? told the Bulgarian National Radio on Saturday it is of key importance to determine whether force had been used by police and whether its reactions with regard to the migrant groups had been "proportionate".

The group of 54 people of which the dead migrant was part might have been looking for asylum and this would suggest measures taken by police were "extreme", Cernu??kov? warned.

Her comments follow calls by the UNCHR for an independent investigation.

“People trying to seek safety across the borders should not be dying with bullets at Europe’s doorsteps," Babar Baloch, the UNHCR spokesperson for Central Europe, was later quoted by the Guardian as saying.

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