Bulgarian Police, Army Conduct Joint Drills on Border with Macedonia

Bulgarian police officers and servicemen are conducting joint training on the country's border with Macedonia on Friday.

The training is aimed at assessing the country's capacity to guard the border in the event of a heightened migrant pressure and counter the smuggling of migrants.

The drills are planned as continuation of the “Border 2016” training which took place in the beginning of March on the border with Greece.

The training aims to coordinate forces and resources of the interior and defence ministries as well as to maintain the country's readiness to react in the event of heightened migrant pressure on its borders.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova and Defence Minister Nikolay Nenchev are scheduled to hold a joint meeting with their Macedonian counterparts at the Zlatarevo border checkpoint.

Bulgarian police and army officers are training their reaction to different scenarios such as clashes, detention of violent migrants and medical evacuation of injured people.

The servicemen from the land forces are intensively training the setting up of temporary check points and border patrols, private bTV station informs.

The deployment of the army to the border became possible after the parliament approved amendments to the Defence and Armed Forces Act last month, which allows servicemen to guard the border on an equal footing with police.

On Thursday, Bulgaria and Macedonia agreed to hold joint air and land operations on border control.

Meanwhile, the State Agency for Refugees (DAB) informed that 3160 migrants had sought protection in Bulgaria in the first two months of this year.

Out of them, 137 people were granted with refugee status, while 73 were denied.

According to DAB, the highest number of migrants came from Iraq (1719), followed by refugees from Afghanistan (917), Syrians (359), Pakistani (94) and only eight from Iran.

The majority of them have already left the country in the direction of western Europe.

In a response to MP's question, Interior Minister Bachvarova informed that 507 people have been charged with smuggling activity in 2015.

A total of 4954 foreigners have been detained as they were transported illegally across the country's borders last year.

Syrians were the most numerous – 2029, 1718 came from Iraq, 1069 were Afghans, while 59 were from Pakistan.

Border police registered 569 cases of smuggling activity last year.

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