Dead bodies of 18 people, including a child, and 34 people, including 5 children, were recovered from an abandoned truck in Bulgaria. It is said that the country’s police have arrested 4 people in this incident.
The British media reported this information in a report of the government of Bulgaria on Friday.
According to the report, refugees and migrants were kept in a secret room inside the timber-laden truck.
The truck was found abandoned near the village of Lokorsko, 12 miles (20 km) northeast of Bulgaria’s capital Sofia, the country’s interior ministry said.
Describing the conditions inside the truck, Bulgaria’s Health Minister Asen Medzidiev said: ‘The people locked in the truck were starved of oxygen. They were freezing cold, wet, they hadn’t eaten in days. This is the deadliest incident involving migrants in Bulgaria.’
He said the condition of some of those rescued alive from the truck is critical. They are currently undergoing treatment in the hospital.
Authorities did not immediately reveal the nationalities of the people found.
Bulgaria has been accused of inhumane treatment of people trying to cross from Turkey, news agencies say.
Asylum seekers complain that they have been stopped and arrested while trying to enter the country. Bulgaria has even faced accusations of confiscating and beating asylum seekers.
A large number of people from Turkey try to enter the European Union. In this work they use Bulgaria as a route. And so Bulgaria has long struggled to effectively stop large numbers of people trying to enter the EU from Turkey.
(Written by News Desk using information from different news sources available on internet and Twitter.)
