Bulgaria has sent 350 soldiers to the border with Turkey to help police deal with the growing influx of migrants, the defense minister said. “From today, soldiers have arrived at the Bulgarian-Turkish border to support the border police,” said the Bulgarian Defense Minister. He added that 350 troops are deployed with 40 pieces of equipment. More than 6,500 people have already crossed the Bulgarian border illegally this year, three times more than in the first nine months of 2020, according to the Interior Ministry.
Bulgaria is on one of the main routes by which migrants enter the EU from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Bulgaria is the external border of the European Union. A partially damaged concertina razor wire fence runs along the 259-kilometer border with Turkey. In August, parliament agreed to send 400 to 700 troops to the borders with Greece and Turkey, mainly to help build new and repair old razor wire fences.