A group of 69 illegal migrants detained near Ihtiman

group illegal migrants detained near ihtiman

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от БНТ

22:12, 28.06.2021

69 illegal migrants were detained in the forest near the Western Bulgarian town of Ihtiman on June 28. They were on the territory of the state hunting farm Eledzhik. The group was spotted by a farm employee who was patrolling. In just one week, this is the second large group of illegal migrants detained in the area.

It was 5:50 p.m., I was patrolling the Eledzhik hunting farm, and I noticed smoke in the distance, explained Ivan Yankulov from the Eledzhik State Hunting Farm.

Ivan Yankulov was part of the Specialized Anti-Terrorist Squad for 20 years. After retiring he started work in the hunting farm.

I was terrified when I saw fire from several places. Some people started running. I went to tell them not to light fires, because this could set the forest on fire. And when I shouted, "Wait, what are you doing here?" , people started coming from everywhere," commented Yankulov.

The group turned out to be 69 young men.

"The first ones started approaching me so quickly. One of them spoke some English, he said they were from Afghanistan. But whether they are from Afghanistan or not and where they are from, no one knows," said Ivan Yankulov.

He immediately called the police in Ihtiman..

"I want to thank them and congratulate them, the police patrols arrived in no more than 10-12 minutes," Yankulov added.

Traces of bivouacs and fires are found in many places around the hunting farm where illegal migrants lived. They literally broke the wild boar feeders and took the corn to feed on.

The fires were 11 in total. While waiting for the police to come, Yankulov made the migrants put out the burning fires.

"And because they were hungry, they tried to boil the corn here and bake it on a metal sheet. I'll show you the other things there. Later, when the police came, I took the oportunity to make them clean. Here's another fire. Here...another one... we missed that They left a backpack with corn, here they took it so that they could eat something," Yankulov commented.

He suggested that after being left in the area, the migrants were lied to by traffickers that they would be transported to Sofia and the border with Serbia. Probably it had to happen at night.

The medicines, mineral water labels and waffle packs found show that the migrants came from Turkey.

"Five days ago, on 22nd of June, I caught another group of migrants, including 21 young boys, but they were on the road. They ran on every car that passed and were banging on it asking where Sofia was", said Ivan Yankulov.

The Interior Ministry said that after the detention, the group was accommodated in a centre for illegal migrants.