No fewer than eighteen migrants have been discovered dead in an abandoned truck, the interior ministry revealed on Saturday, as the Balkan nation struggles with an increase in illicit border crossings.
The vehicle ‘was illegally transporting around 40 migrants hidden under some wood’, the ministry said. ‘Eighteen of them have died.’
After locals alerted the police, the truck was located near the village of Lokorsko, 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.
Africa Today News, New York reports that some of the migrants still alive in the truck were taken to hospital.
A search was underway for human traffickers believed to have driven the truck and fled, authorities said.
It was believed to be the deadliest incident involving migrants in Bulgaria.
EU-member Bulgaria, which serves as a gateway into the bloc, has been trying to tighten security to stop a rising number of people seeking to cross the border.
In a bid to stem the flow, Bulgaria has stepped up controls along the 234-kilometre (145-mile) barbed wire fence covering almost the entire border with Turkey.
Austria and the Netherlands have blocked Sofia’s bid to join the Schengen border-free zone.
Bulgaria has faced mounting accusations it is abusing people trying to cross over from Turkey, with asylum seekers saying they have been pushed back, locked up, stripped, and beaten.
In another report, Moscow on Thursday asserted that it was expelling four Austrian diplomats right after Vienna expelled about four employees of Russia’s foreign missions in Austria, with tensions soaring over the Ukraine conflict.
The foreign ministry disclosed that the expulsion of its diplomats had been an ‘unfriendly and unjustified step that ’causes serious damage to bilateral relations, which are already in crisis due to the actions of the Austrian side’.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Austria and other EU nations have expelled dozens of Russian diplomats since Moscow launched a military campaign in Ukraine, with Russia reciprocating the measures.