Mariana Tosheva is the new Head of the State Agency for Refugees

Mariana Tosheva is the new Head of the State Agency for Refugees, the government press office said on March 23.

Tosheva has nearly 30 years of professional experience in working with refugees.

She started as Coordinator of the UNHCR project "Local Settlement of Refugees in Bulgaria" in 1993, later joined the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee as "Deputy Director of the Programme for Legal Assistance to Refugees and Migrants, and from 2007 until very recently she worked as Programme Manager of the Refugee and Migrant Service of the Bulgarian Red Cross.

Tosheva has skills to manage and coordinate teams and projects, she is known for her tolerance and ability to communicate with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and she has experience in working in a multicultural team. She speaks German, English and Russian, the government press office said.

Earlier today, the Council of Ministers took a decision to dismiss Petya Parvanova from the post, at the proposal of Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov.

Petya Parvanova resigns as Head of the State Agency for Refugees

Among the reasons for Parvanova's dismissal are unsatisfactory results over the years, insufficient technological and expert support and readiness to deal with refugee crises.

Despite the fact that the Agency has been provided with 50 million BGN of funding from both EU programmes and the state budget in the last three years alone, it lacks the capacity and resources to manage the situation of people displaced from Ukraine, the Council of Ministers said.