Two human rights organizations have denounced that the Bulgarian authorities ignored relief calls and slowed the efforts of activists to rescue three Egyptian adolescents, who died at temperatures below zero near the border between Bulgaria and Turkey at the end of December.
The two NGOs have Prepared an extensive report with testswho has had access The Guardianwith photographs, testimonies and geolocation that supposedly demonstrates the inability of the Bulgarian authorities to save the three minors, who asked for help while struggling to survive under the cold and lost in the forests of Burgas, in southeast of Bulgaria.
Organizations No Name Kitchen (NNK) and Colletive Rotte Balcaniche (CRB) claim that their report, Frost livesit reflects only the tip of the iceberg of a systemic problem of brutality against migrants on European borders.
The border of Bulgaria – member of the European Union – with Türkiye is a frequent place of passage for people who want to request asylum in Europe. In recent years, there have been widely documented human rights abuses, including complaints of illegal returns from asylum applicants to Türkiye. It is an intimidating, rocky and mountainous terrain, with winter temperatures below zero and icy wind.
Aid calls
NNK and CRB claim that on the morning of December 27, 2024 they received the first notice that calls were made to a help line created by a group of social organizations. The calls referred to three teenagers “at immediate risk of death” and sent GPS locations. The activists made several calls to the official emergency number 112. They also tried to communicate with the boys.
The Bulgarian border police allegedly prevented attempts to rescue organizations, although they showed them a video that showed one of the boys in the snow. The teenagers, later identified as Ahmed Samra, 16, Ahmed Elawda, 17, and Seifalla Elbeltagy, 15, were found dead later. Ahmed Samra had “footprints of dog and boots around the body”, which, according to the report, “indicates that the border police had already found it, perhaps alive or dead, but decided to leave it in the cold.”
The activists who later returned to the place say that someone had erased any trace of the footprints. One of those who discovered the body in the snow affirms that the image had been “engraved on fire” forever in his memory. The body of one of the boys had been partially devoured by an animal.
Harassment to activists
The report details the systematic harassment to which the rescue teams of organizations were subjected in December, coinciding with a drastic decrease in temperatures, as well as vandalism against one of its cars. According to the document, the border guards forced them to leave the vehicle and later found it with the shattered windows. Someone had put screws in the engine to spoil it.
The agents also confiscated the passports and phones of a rescue team, and took their fingerprints and photographs. An activist was forced to undress at the police station to register it. According to her testimony, she was separated from her companions and undressed her in front of two border police officers, and sat down naked while registering her bags. “I had the rule and it seemed very unpleasant and unnecessary to force me to become naked. The final purpose of the agents seemed to be intimidated and scared and so that we did not return to participate in a rescue task, ”he says.
During another rescue attempt, a group was forced to walk about 10 kilometers to the closest city while the Border Police followed them in their vehicle.
In recent years, several human rights organizations have warned of what they consider a strong increase in attacks against those who show solidarity and support migrants and asylum seekers in Europe.
Last September, the Bulgarian authorities were in the spotlight after the investigation medium BALKAN INSIGHT I would discover indications that the agents of the EU border agency were intimidating the agents of the EU, Frontex, to keep silent about the human rights abuses that they had witnessed on the Bulgarian border.
They ask for an investigation
In the light of the death of adolescents, NNK and CRB have requested an “independent and formal research” on “systemic violence and negligence of the Bulgarian authorities”, and “the degrading treatment of people in transit.”
“It should not be the responsibility of aware activists to reach the people who are in the forest: the Border Police is formed and is paid to do so,” says an activist. “It is absolutely shocking that three minors have died frozen in the forest despite the many calls for help at 112. It represents a great failure of the system. Not only for Bulgarian police forces, but for the EU in general and all its member states. ”
Interior rejects accusations
The Bulgarian Interior Ministry rejects these accusations and states that its agents at the borders reacted timely to the calls and sent patrols “immediately.” According to their version, the bodies were found in places other than those indicated.
The Ministry also points out that investigations on these cases continue, and adds that the Border Police does not “allow or tolerate any expression of inhuman or disrespectful behavior of the agents towards anyone. And this applies to all citizens and all nationals in third countries that enter irregularly in the territory of the country. ”
“In 2024, the General Directorate of the Bulgarian Border Police carried out 515 search and rescue operations with the aim of providing medical assistance to citizens of third countries that had entered the country irregularly,” says Interior. “Our agents reacted to all those signals on time, taking into account that when a person is exposed to extreme weather conditions, speed is key.”
Emma Reverter translation.
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