Bulgarian berry pickers stranded in Sweden reach out to BNT

Bulgarians sought urgent help from BNT. For 20 days now, 56 Bulgarian guest workers are in distress in Sweden. They say they were deceived by a Serb who promised them 200-300 euros a day to pick blueberries, but then did not provide them with any work and did not pay them anything. The group, which also includes children, lives in terrible conditions and cannot return to Bulgaria.

Some people are already provided with shelter. However, they want to return to Bulgaria. They have no money because they gave 150 euros per person to start work. The nearest settlement is Braten.

"A person, Alexi, came to the village of Nikolaevo, Pleven region (Northern Bulgaria), and said: 'Boys, will you come to pick blueberries?' We said: 'We are coming'. The time has come, the bus has come, we got on it and left for Sweden. We have been here for 20 days without picking blueberries. We picked for 4 days, they took the blueberries and did not give us money, neither for food, nor for anything", says Petar Yakov.

Social services in Sweden should soon find shelter for the people who are still in tents. About 36 people remained without shelter. The weather is cold and rainy, in the evening the temperature drops below 10 degrees.

"And they are waiting and I gave a signal to the social services to go and pick them up," Peter added.

The sheltered guest workers contacted their stranded friends.

"We want shelter, so that the children can be warm, not to be miserable, not to starve, it has been raining for 3 days, we have nowhere to hide, we have no tents!", they say.

The stranded Bulgarians in Sweden are praying to be taken back to Bulgaria as soon as possible.

"Please, from the bottom of our hearts! We only want to go home to our children in Bulgaria, because they need us, they need money, and we cannot provide it to them!", one of them added.

Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry replied that they were aware of the case. The Bulgarian embassy in Stockholm is in constant contact with the local authorities, looking for options to assist for the return of our compatriots to Bulgaria.