UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) Antonio Guterres got an earful from refugees when he visited a Bulgarian refugee shelter Friday. He called on other European countries to help the beleaguered Bulgarians who were swamped with 10,000 refugees coming across their Turkish border this past year alone!
But get this! 4,000 were other-than-Syrians, so who were they?
From AFP via Ma’an News Agency:
SOFIA (AFP) — UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres on Friday called for the European Union to step up support for countries like Bulgaria coping with an influx of Syrian refugees living in overcrowded camps.
The EU needs to mobilize and show “solidarity … especially when some countries like Bulgaria have more limited resources and are at the external border of the union,” Guterres told journalists after visiting a refugee camp in Sofia with EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva.
Bulgaria, the bloc’s poorest member, has been completely overwhelmed by the arrival this year of almost 10,000 refugees — 60 percent of them Syrian — crossing over illegally from Turkey.
Bulgaria taking some action to stem the tide:
Bulgaria started turning non-Syrian refugees back at the border this month and plans to build a 20-mile fence in one area.
Refugees: we want out of here, we want to go farther west into Europe!
“We thought that this is Europe but we were mistaken. We want to head west as soon as possible,” said a 34-year-old Syrian refugee, Yusuf Kuka, at the Vrazhdebna camp on the outskirts of Sofia on Friday.
“We have waited for two months already, in vain, and the conditions here are dangerous for the children,” added another refugee, Ralfa Gennan, from the city of Homs.
[….]
They complained about the lack of enough living space, the shortage of blankets, and the poor hygiene in the few toilets and bathrooms in the building. [Perhaps Guterres arranged for the delivery of cleaning supplies.—ed]
We want passports out of here!
About 100 women and children blocked Guterres’ way out of the courtyard, shouting “Passports! Passports.”
See all of our previous posts on poor Bulgaria by clicking here. Don’t miss Israel’s Mossad to the rescue, here.