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Does the Sky News report tell the whole truth about the migrant shooting incident at Bulgarian-Turkish border?
An investigation by the British Sky News TV and several other Western European media outlets claims that Bulgarian border police officers shot and wounded a Syrian citizen attempting to cross illegally into Bulgaria from Turkey.
The TV station broadcast a footage taken by migrants in which a shot is heard. The footage was released by a Dutch NGO that deals with international investigations. Bulgaria's Ministry of Interior confirmed the incident on 3 October, but denied that Bulgarian border police officers fired at the migrants.
The footage comes after the Netherlands announced that it would veto Bulgaria's accession into Schengen.
The incident referred to in the footage happened a month before a Bulgarian border policeman was shot dead at Bulgaria’s border with Turkey.
There was an investigation in Bulgaria and Turkey. It turns out that the Sky News team was thoroughly informed that the Bulgarian border authorities had made contact with their Turkish counterparts already when the group of 70 illegal migrants tried to cross the border. Turkish border guards took the migrants inside Turkey, and investigations in both countries found that no shots were fired from Bulgarian territory.
The Ministry of Interior provided the full position that was sent to the Sky News team on the border case, but it was not covered in full in the media report. During the incident Bulgarian border police officers were pelted with stones by illegal migrants and a police officer was injured. The authors of the media report were informed about this, but it is not part of their material.
Ministry of Interior with a position after the "Sky News" investigation of Bulgarian border guards
And one more thing - there is a website on the internet, and a group on one of the social media networks, where illegal migrants every day post videos with similar content, even much more brutal, from different borders of European countries, most of them part of the Schengen area. This video, however, is not there.
It is clear from the full position that the Ministry of Interior has sent to the authors of the coverage broadcast on Sky News that what happened at the border is different from what was presented. The group of migrants reached the border with Bulgaria and saw the police patrol. It retreated to the interior of Turkey and later came back again and started throwing stones at the Bulgarian border police through the fence.
"Our border police, including in this case, are subjected to extreme aggression. You can see how the head of a border police officer looks like. Such aggression, which leads to the maiming of officers, which leads to the destruction of the places where these officers have to perform their duties, will be met with the necessary counter measures," said Ivan Demerdzhiev, caretaker Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.
Minister Demerdzhiev also commented on the claims of the illegal migrant posing as the victim and who said that a Bulgarian border police officer had fired a shot from Bulgarian to Turkish territory and seriously wounded him.
"No, the allegation is not true. A joint Bulgarian-Turkish commission has been investigating this incident since October 1. There were such complaints and allegations, the Turkish side immediately provided them to us as data. We have sent a team, an investigation is underway. Including, as far as I know, such an investigation is underway in the Prosecutor's office," minister Demerdzhiev said.
"I think that the colleagues from the Ministry of Interior gave detailed information that establishes a different situation from the one claimed. There was no shooting. As far as I know, there is an investigation in Bourgas, which the Prosecutor's office in Bourgas has also not established these circumstances in the form that is being publicized in the media," Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev said.
The Ministry of Interior informed the authors of the media report that on a signal from the Bulgarian authorities, a Turkish border patrol had picked up the entire group of migrants and they had not left the territory of Turkey. A month later, the two sides discussed the results of the investigation and it was established that the shot heard on the video was not fired from Bulgarian territory.
"We have good cooperation with Turkey at the level of the Prosecutor's office, extremely good contact with our colleagues, in case of relevant requests for legal assistance and issues concerning relevant criminal proceedings in both countries we have extremely good cooperation at the level of the Prosecutor's office and the judiciary. Now at the level of the executive branch, the Ministry of the Interior, as far as I know, there is extremely good cooperation," chief prosecutor Geshev said.
According to Arabist Vladimir Chukov, such accounts of violence at Europe's borders are posted by illegal migrants from the Middle East and North Africa in a social networking group, as well as on a purpose-built website in Arabic. Even in one of the latest videos published, they boast about jumping a border fence between Morocco and the Spanish town of Melilla in North Africa with a paraglider.
"The narrative we heard from this boy is very similar to similar types of narratives. They tell stories how they are being beaten, their phones are being taken, they have nothing to take pictures with, you know," Chukov said.
According to Chukov, the part of the narrative describing the Bulgarian border police officers conducting "indecent" searches of the women and treating them rudely also sounds absolutely implausible.
"That's the kind of thing that suggests this is a story that's been written in advance. This type of story recreates the way police in their countries suppress demonstrations. The treatment of women in our society and their society is totally different. And whoever fabricated this story is not a psychologist, does not know our society. I mean this is something taken out of context and I think any intelligent person can guess why they are bringing it up now. Literally two days before an important vote on Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen," Chukov said.
"And if until yesterday we were persuaded that our border can be crossed for 50 euros, now we are persuaded the opposite, that we are 9 times deterring someone from crossing and sometimes we use weapons. We may use weapons sometimes, but not in this case. Thank you," said Minister of Interior.
There is no evidence that there were any women in this group of nearly 70 migrants making an unsuccessful attempt to cross our border.
The European Commission has also reacted to the report, which was broadcast by Sky News, with a spokesman calling on the authorities to clarify everything in the case.
The Ministry of Interior stressed that Schengen legislation is strictly respected when guarding the border, as well as the need to protect the health and lives of both illegal migrants and border guards. Prosecutor General said that Bulgaria fully meets Schengen standards.
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