Three teenagers died of cold on the border with Bulgaria after the border police refused to respond to their requests for help. The complaint comes from a dossier of two NGOs who point the finger at Sofia’s authorities accusing her of causing the death of the three young migrants.
The dossier of the Name Kitchen (NNK) and collective Balkan routes (CRD) organizations contains photos, testimonies and geolocation that would demonstrate the lack of will of the authorities to save the boys, who asked for help while fighting for cold life and lost in the forests of Burgas, in the south-east of Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian border with Turkey is a frequent passage point for people who hope to ask for asylum in Europe, but in recent years abuse of well -documented human rights have occurred, including the accusations of illegal rejection of asylum seekers towards Turkey. It is a prohibitive, rocky and hilly soil, with rigid winter temperatures and pungent winds.
As reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, NNK and CRB claim to have been notified for the first time on the morning of December 27, 2024 that calls to an emergency telephone line established by a group of charity associations had been made. The calls referred to three teenagers “in immediate risk of death” and sent the GPS positions.
The activists then made several calls to the official emergency number 112 and tried to reach the boys themselves. But the Bulgarian border police would have hindered the rescue attempts by the organizations, despite having been shown a video of one of the boys in the snow.
The young victims
The boys, later identified as Ahmed Samra, 17 years old, Ahmed Elawdan, 16 years old, and Seifalla Elbeltagy, 15 years old, were all found dead. Ahmed Samra was found with “imprints of dog legs and impressions of boots around the body”, which, according to the report, “indicates that the border police had already found him, perhaps still alive or dead, but had chosen to Leave it there in the cold “.
The activists who returned to the spot later say they discovered that all the traces of the footprints had then been deleted. One of the boys had also been partially eaten by an animal.
The complaints
In recent years, several human rights organizations have launched the alarm for what, according to them, is a strong increase in aggressions towards those who show solidarity and work with asylum seekers and migrants throughout Europe.
Last September, the spotlight returned to be focused on the Bulgarian authorities after the Balkan Insight investigative agency discovered evidence that suggested that the officials of the EU border agency of Frontex were intimidated to induce them to keep silent about the violations of the rights of which had been witnessed on the Bulgarian border.