Report from Dimitrovgrad

Dimitrovgrad urgently needs people! There are only six people and actually all of them want to leave as soon as possible (as soon as someone arrives).

The situation is pretty critical and also very scary. There are far to less volunteers at place providing tea, soup and blankets to 500-700 arriving people every day, a lot of them amilies. The built up two pavillons, one for cooking and one for shelter. Red Cross is there during the day with a mini camp but still leaving the place from the afternoon to the morning and not providing blankets. People have to wait up to 24 hours for busses to Belgrade.

Scary Locals have threatened volunteers and forced them to remove any information for refugees on their criminal taxi business (direction Belgrade) as well as any arabic and farsi signs („because the taxi drivers cant read it“). The volunters there were really scared as the leading guys of the local „mafia“ showed up and kind of „cooperated“ to calm down the situation and prevent violent escalation. The local police is also making their corrupt business. Since yesterday night refugees are forced to pay a ten euro fee for registration which is no legal.

Also police at Dimitrovgrad is very uncooperative and tried to force people to remove the tents as there is no official permission. At the moment, volunteers can continue their work but police threatens with eviction.

Arriving people describe Bulgaria as a horror. There are a large number of personal reports about refugees who had been robbed in Bulgaria by police, taken away everything, passport,money, mobile phones. Many people and also families had been taken into custody, beaten up violently, tortured and forced to give fingerprints. A lot of people at Dimitrovgrad have injuries caused by Bulgarian police. Several reports by arriving people of illegal pushbacks and of at least three dead lying on the trails at Bulgarian-Turkish and Bulgarian-Serbian border.