The Bulgarian Border Police prevents the rescue of three underage people on the move in life-threatening danger. The bodies, abandoned in the snow-covered woods and partially eaten by animals, were then recovered by the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche and No Name Kitchen.
The Bulgarian Border Police abandoned three underage Egyptian migrants—Ali (15), Samir (16), and Yasser (17)—whose critical condition had been repeatedly reported. The authorities’ failure to provide aid and their consistent obstruction of rescue operations by activists led to the teenagers’ deaths.
In the early hours of December 27, rescue teams from the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche and No Name Kitchen (NNK) received reports of three unaccompanied minors facing imminent death, likely from hypothermia, near the city of Burgas in southeastern Bulgaria. Videos accompanying the reports showed two of them unconscious and lying in the snow. The emergency number 112 was called multiple times, pleading for immediate assistance. The rescue teams rushed to reach the minors, fully aware that the Border Police often neglect to assist people on the move or push them back to Turkey—a practice known as “pushback,” deemed illegal by all international treaties, particularly when involving unaccompanied minors.
However, the activists were repeatedly blocked by Border Police patrols and thus unable to reach the minors. They urged the police to intervene, only to be met with threats and brutal removal.
On December 28, the rescue teams finally reached the locations initially reported to 112 the day before. They found two adolescents dead—one covered in snow and the other lying with his head in a puddle. On December 29, the activists proceeded to the last reported location. Not only did they find the third body, but it had been partially mutilated, with a foot and the head eaten by animals. While the first body was located 20 meters from the coordinates provided to authorities, the other two were found precisely at the GPS locations shared with 112 and were clearly visible along the trail.
There appear to be only two plausible explanations for the authorities’ actions: either they found the dying individuals and abandoned them, or they never reached the locations despite having clear directions. Distinct military boot prints in the snow near one of the bodies—later erased when Border Police were forced to recover the corpse—suggest that officers had been present earlier but failed to provide aid, perhaps when the person could still have been saved.
On a smaller scale, the authorities also imposed violence on members of the rescue teams. In addition to numerous threats, the Border Police forced one team to walk for hours through the freezing night, ordered a rescuer to carry one of the lifeless bodies by hand, and made others travel in the trunk of a police car. These practices align with patterns observed by the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche since the summer of 2023: failure to assist people in urgent need of medical care, pushbacks to Turkey of those in critical medical condition, deaths, and escalating repression against those providing solidarity. Just days earlier, after rescuing three people in distress, four members of the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche were detained overnight in a dilapidated barracks room without mattresses, and the same treatment was given to members of No Name Kitchen on December 29—the fifth such incident since September.
European migration policies are transforming land and sea borders into authorized meat grinders, endangering people and then denying them rescue, effectively taking direct responsibility for their deaths. These policies killed Ali, Samir, and Yasser, just as they have killed tens of thousands of people at Europe’s borders over the past two decades, and they will continue to kill many more unless stopped. These are not failures of the policies, but the policies themselves. As rewards for all this, Bulgaria was recently granted access to the Schengen area.
Press Release of the Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche – 06/01/2025
Source: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=589628667005637&id=100078755275162
