On Saturday, a protest at “Vazrazhdane” against the euro ended with six arrests and ten injured police officers. The building of the European Commission representation in Sofia was doused with red paint, party supporters burned the European Union flag.
“I feel terrible, I am very outraged by what happened yesterday”, said senior police officer Hristina Kirilova from the “Specialized Police Forces” department on the “Wake Up” program.
She is one of the injured uniformed officers. Last night she was examined in hospital and released.
“I have a bruise on my lower back from a fall. The pain is getting worse today,” she said.
“We were carrying out security tasks for a mass event - a protest. It was supposed to take place in the area of the Bulgarian National Bank, but an unregulated procession was held here. The crowd was very aggressive, it escalated. We set up a cordon in the area of \u200b\u200bGeorgi Rakovski Street, in order to prevent the protesters from breaking into the building or causing damage. However, several people broke through the cordon, a gentleman pushed me, I slipped in the paint and fell. I got up immediately because I was afraid of being trampled by the crowd. I saw the gentleman take something out of his pocket and throw it at the entrance. The same object ignited and the fire broke out. Then I detained him”, said senior police officer Hristina Kirilova.
„We were all sprayed with paint, our clothes, the station, our official equipment. Many colleagues were sprayed in the eye area. Several colleagues are not well, objects were removed from their eyes”, she also said.
„There were aggressive citizens and provocateurs. There were those who had deliberately hidden their identity with scarves and masks. We did not identify them later”, she also said.