Austria's chancellor has said he would lobby the European Union for €2 billion in funding for Bulgaria to strengthen its border with Turkey. Despite pushback, Bulgaria's president says he's hopeful his country would join the Schengen group of countries in the foreseeable future.
Bulgaria has detained 70 people suspected of having entered the country as migrants using irregular means. Some had to be rushed to hospital having suffered exhaustion, according to regional police forces.
Croatia will join the unrestricted movement arrangement from January 1. However, an EU official confirmed the bids from Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen Area have been blocked.
A new European investigative journalism report alleges that migrants are being "abitrarily detained and tortured at secret facilities along EU borders before being illegally forced back across [those] borders."
The Balkan nation has rejected accusations that its border guards shot a Syrian refugee in October. A video released showed a man being shot on Bulgaria's border with Turkey.
Bulgaria's coast guard has reportedly rescued 38 migrants trying to reach Romania from the Black Sea. According to the interior ministry, this is the first such incident recorded in the region since 2014.
The number of migrants and refugees who cross from Turkey into Bulgaria has increased sharply. So far this year, border authorities have recorded 85,000 arrivals – more than double the figure for the whole of 2021.
Bulgarian police have detained more than 140 Afghans near Burgas on the Black Sea coast. Authorities have announced that security at the Turkish border will be stepped up.
War refugees from Ukraine are to be moved from Bulgarian hotels on the Black Sea Coast to reception centers before the holiday season begins, the government in Sofia has said. The EU member state is currently home to some 90,000 refugees from Ukraine.
Human Rights Watch has accused Bulgarian authorities of attacking Afghan and other asylum-seekers, using police dogs and other violence to illegally push them back into Turkey.
Kalina Yordanova is a clinical psychologist in Bulgaria who has been working with refugees since 2009. She has recently been applying her expertise to help Ukrainians via an online platform called 'Кожа'.
Lena* is a communications professional. She ran her own agency in Ukraine and was used to being independent. Five days after the war started, she felt she had no other option but to flee Kyiv with her son. She is now in Bulgaria, attempting to put her life back together again "from scratch."