The intensified work to combat the illegal trafficking of migrants has achieved results in the past two months, the Ministry of the Interior reports.
After the operations ordered by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Kalin Stoyanov, to counteract the flow of migrants passing through Bulgaria, only for the period June 1 – July 31, 46,940 attempts to cross the Bulgarian-Turkish border were prevented.
This represents a 73% increase in the number of unauthorized illegal entries into the country compared to the same period in 2022, when there were 27,083.
The results speak for the extremely good work of the frontline border officials. A double increase marks the number of migrants detained by the Bulgarian border authorities within the border area – 400 compared to 200 for the same two-month period of the previous year.
As a result of the targeted operations conducted on the territory of the country, the number of pre-trial proceedings under Art. 279, Art. 280 and Art. 281 of the Criminal Code – from 194 for the months of June and July 2022 to 343 for the two months of 2023, which is an increase of nearly 77%.
The number of detained third-country nationals inside the country is also increasing. From June 1 to July 31, they are 3,452, according to the data of the regional directorates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Migration Directorate. This is 3.7 times (or 270%) more compared to the indicated period of 2022 (928 people).
Data for the period from the beginning of 2023 to August 7 shows that 108,954 attempts to illegally enter Bulgaria through the border with Turkey were prevented, compared to 67,846 for the same period last year, an increase of 59%.
A decrease is reported in the number of detained third-country nationals attempting to breach the Bulgarian-Serbian and Bulgarian-Romanian borders – a result of improved activity in preventing migrants from crossing to Western Europe.
On leaving the country for Serbia, 1,033 third-country nationals were detained, which is a decrease of 57% compared to the same period last year (2,423). Detainees who tried to cross illegally to our northern neighbor are 157, which represents a decrease of 30% compared to 2022 (226) – data from the Main Directorate of Border Police show.
