SOFIA: Bulgarian police have arrested four people after 18 people were found dead in an abandoned truck, while 34 survivors, most of them in critical condition, were rushed to the hospital, Bulgaria’s government says.
The truck seemed to have been illegally transporting a group of migrants.
The health minister said that thirty-four people, including five children, were rushed to hospitals, and some were in critical condition.
He said the people in the truck were cold and wet and had not eaten in days.
The incident is believed to be the deadliest involving migrants in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria has long struggled with large numbers of people trying to enter the European Union (EU) from Turkiye.
Truck was illegally transporting migrants: Bulgaria’s police
The migrants’ truck – found near the village of Lokorsko, 20km (12 miles) north-east of Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia – was illegally transporting the migrants in hidden compartments where they had suffocated, police said.
Bulgarian Health Minister described the conditions inside the truck: “There has been a lack of oxygen to those locked in this truck. They were freezing, wet; they had not eaten for several days.”
Police believe those discovered in the truck were from Afghanistan and were being illegally transported to Serbia.
One of the four detained people had already been sentenced for human trafficking, Atanas Ilkov, a senior police officer, told Reuters.
Bulgaria has long been accused of abusing people attempting to enter from Turkiye, with asylum seekers saying they have been blocked, arrested, stripped, and beaten.
