Bulgaria will Accommodate Refugees in Containers due to Overcrowded Centers

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) will open up more than 1,200 places for refugees in containers in Lyubimets near the refugee accommodation center there. The measure is necessary because of the increased migration pressure, which in the last week of August caused 90% of the places in the homes for foreigners to be filled.

This is shown by a reference made by Bulgarian media "Dnevnik" in the statistical data published on the website of the Ministry of the Interior. For the last week of August, the centers at the Ministry of the Interior were filled to 90% of capacity (from 65% as of August 21 to 90% as of August 28).

Read more about the overcrowded refugee camps in Bulgaria here.

Thus, 1239 places out of 1368 are occupied at the moment. They also include newly opened over 300 places again in Lyubimets. The MIA centers are the first to house detained migrants, then depending on whether people seek protection or not, they are transferred to the refugee agency's homes. The places there were half full by the end of August.

It's the period in which the department, whose leadership has long warned of increased migration pressure, also announced increased border controls, including drones and additional troops, after a crash between a bus and a police car that killed two law enforcement officers. The Deputy Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs even announced that 1,000 foreigners, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, are being detained.

The unveiling of new 1,200 places in Lyubimets will be in equipped containers - "buildings", which are already located in the yard of the city center. They were deployed in October 2021. Their main goal then was to provide a larger area...