„Historically, we had the highest peak of illegal migration when I took office - there were over 1,000 attempts per day to cross our border. Now there are 10-15 per day, approaching the minimum since there was a migrant wave. There is a reduction in this pressure and it was also seen by our partners in Europe“.
This was announced on bTV by Chief Commissioner Anton Zlatanov, Director of the Main Directorate of the Border Police at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
He explained that the data show that the pressure towards Europe has not decreased, but towards Bulgaria it has.
“We also guard our sea border well. Ships patrol the Black Sea – we have 11 on staff, 7 are in constant motion, we constantly provide assistance with one of them in the Aegean Sea to the Greeks. We protect our territorial waters and all ships are checked at the ports,“ said Zlatanov.
He explained that security must be invested in both people and equipment, because we still do not have an anti-drone system.
70 million leva is needed for such a system, and it will only be on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, added the director of the “Border Police“.
“The anti-drone system will be able to monitor the airspace below 3,000 m, and since there is no such system, this helps with drug trafficking. Indeed, when we cannot technically detect unmanned aerial vehicles in the air, someone who wants to smuggle drugs or a group of migrants can lift the drone and look where there are fewer patrols to scout and pass through there. But we have taken measures that are both short-term. We have deployed more patrols and overtime, it is not normal to work with outdated methods, however“, Zlatanov also said.
He also mentioned the cases in which people from the group with illegal migrants are abandoned because someone felt sick.
“We find a lot of bodies in Sakar Mountain. We call late for people in distress, and there are also cases in which we have caught people from NGOs. Border police ask them where they are going, they say they are on vacation in Malko Tarnovo, but they don't remember the hotel. Then they catch them stopping by bushes, from which migrants are coming out, the groups get mixed up and that's how everyone was detained“, the director of the “Border Police“ further explained.