Police detained 37 migrants in a van near Sofia

A total of 37 migrants were detained this morning, March 13, near Sofia. They were in a Bulgarian van, the driver of which is also Bulgarian. He is 20 years old and known to the police. The migrants were literally crammed on top of each other. They had luggage with them and said they were travelling from Afghanistan.

The detention took place at around 8.00 this morning at the start of Struma highway near "Lyulin" residential suburb in the direction of Pernik.

Police took fingerprints from the detained migrants. The driver of the van was also detained.

"The driver of the van is a Bulgarian citizen. He was detained. This detention was controlled. It did not happen accidentally there at the place where they were detained. We have made checkpoints. We have made tactical deployments at locations. We do not take risky stops. We wait, we observe, and we stop vehicles where it is safe. If you've noticed, there have been no incidents for a long time, for that very reason. People have been trained, repeated drills have been done so that it is safe," said caretaker Minister of Interior, Ivan Demerdzhiev.