More than 44,000 attempts to illegally cross the Bulgarian border prevented since the beginning of the year

More than 44,000 attempts to cross the Bulgarian border illegally have been prevented since the beginning of the year.

The caretaker Prime Minister, the Ministers of Interior and of Foreign Affairs on October 7 visited the border and found that there are currently no compromised sections of the barbed wire barrier between Bulgaria and Turkey.

The integrated surveillance system is to be completed.

Migration pressure along Bulgaria’s border with Turkey has decreased by 70% since the beginning of the year compared to the same period in 2023.

According to the director of the Border Police, Anton Zlatanov, the more complicated task will be to maintain and even improve this result.

Nearly 110 million BGN is needed to maintain the barrier, the surveillance systems, as well as the provision of drones and modern thermal imaging cameras.

All the integrated surveillance systems that have been built are being maintained and 11 million BGN, which have been provided by the European Union, have already been spent on this.

However, two more systems are to be constructed, one of which has received EU funding, but the other will be paid for with state budget funds.

Thus, the entire border between Bulgaria and Turkey will be provided with state-of-the-art surveillance.

"Providing people, providing equipment, maintaining the CCTV systems, which are all working at the moment. The last hundred kilometres, for which there is no video surveillance, after a very long public procurement within almost a year, it is in the final stage, we expect very soon to sign a contract and start the construction," said Anton Zlatanov, Director of Border Police.

This year, the constant maintenance of the fence has been ensured to prevent any torn down and cut sections.

"As soon as we identify any breaks in the barbed wire barrier, we immediately start actions to restore this section and this happens almost in 24 hours at most," Dimitar Glavchev said.

There are currently more than 2,400 applicants to fill the available 400 job positions of border guards. Currently, the army is helping to guard the border, and more troops can be brought in if needed.