Police steps up control at entry and exit points of major cities ahead of Easter

In an attempt to prevent unnecessary travel on the roads in the country ahead of the upcoming Easter holidays, the Ministry of Interior tightens control at the routes into and out of the major district cities.

Long queue of cars has lined up at Hemus motorway checkpoint waiting to leave Sofia. At a special briefing today, April 16, the Interior Ministry announced that they would not lock the district cities, the only thing different is that the reason for travelling to work is dropped. The police check the reason for the trip through the declarations. This is happening at all over 200 checkpoints across the country. The police urged people to be responsible and correct when filling in their declarations and reasons for travelling.

In recent days, more than 9,000 declarations have been checked at random and numerous infringements have been detected. Nearly 650 people have indicated a reason to travel to work without having contracts of employment. 80 people indicated that they were also going to work, although registered with unemployment offices.

Ivaylo Ivanov, Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior: Why are people lying? They think they are tricking the police or the system, but they are tricking themselves and their loved ones. They make up reasons for travel, but this puts them at risk of getting infected or infecting others and we see the consequences by what is happening across the world. My call is - don't try to fool anyone - you are fooling yourself. Stay home, he added.

Hristo Terziyski, the Head of the national police said that police presence at the checkpoints will be enhanced in order to prevent unnecessary and unjustified travel.

There will be also strengthened police presence in all 4,000 temples across the country during the Easter holidays to monitor the compliance with all the measures introduced against the spread of the coronavirus.

The police said they will seek assistance from the army only if there are many cases of police officers infected with the virus.

The MoI Chief Secretary also added that financial penalty will be issued to the Minister of Defence, Krasimir Karakachanov, who a few days ago was photohgraphed sitting on a bench without wearing a protective face mask, which is a breach of emergency regulations .

So far, the police have issued more than 2,000 penalties to people who violated the order of the health minister which requires everyone to wear protective mask in public.