18 Migrants Found Dead in Truck in Bulgaria

The dead appeared to have suffocated inside a secret compartment under a load of lumber.

SOFIA, Bulgaria — The police in Bulgaria on Friday discovered an abandoned truck containing the bodies of 18 migrants, who appeared to have suffocated inside a secret compartment under a load of lumber.

The Interior Ministry said that, according to initial information, the truck was carrying about 40 migrants. The survivors were taken to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment.

The country’s health minister, Assen Medjidiev, said most of the survivors were in very bad condition.

“They have suffered from lack of oxygen; their clothes are wet; they are freezing and, obviously, haven’t eaten for days,” Mr. Medzhidiev said.

The truck was found along a highway near the capital, Sofia. The driver was absent, but the police discovered the passengers in a compartment below the lumber the vehicle also was carrying.

The authorities did not immediately reveal the nationalities of the migrants. Bulgarian news media reported they were all from Afghanistan.

Bulgaria, a Balkan country of seven million, is on a major route for migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Europe. Only a small number of them plan to stay in the country, which is the European Union’s poorest member. Instead, they use Bulgaria as a transit corridor on their way west.

To prevent people from entering the country illegally, Bulgaria’s government erected a barbed-wire fence along its 161-mile border with Turkey. But foreigners fleeing poverty or conflict in their home countries manage to enter with the help of local smugglers.

While the deaths of Europe-bound refugees and asylum seekers at sea are more common, the grim discovery in Bulgaria is not the first time groups of migrants have been found dead in abandoned vehicles.

In October 2019, the British police found the bodies of 39 people in a refrigerated container that had been hauled to England. The police said that all the victims, who ranged in age from 15 to 44, had come from impoverished villages in Vietnam and were believed to have paid smugglers to take them on a risky journey to better lives abroad.

The police said they had died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and overheating in an enclosed space. The truck discovered in the town of Grays, east of London, had arrived in England on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

”READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/world/europe/migrants-dead-bulgaria.html