The European Border Guard Agency (Frontex) said on Thursday it would look into reports that Bulgarian police had locked migrants in a cage, after the UN expressed “concern”. An investigation carried out by several European media states that the immigrants were locked in an improvised cage on the Bulgarian-Turkey border “under the gaze” of Frontex agents.
“Frontex treats seriously any reports of alleged violations of fundamental rights,” the Warsaw-based agency told AFP. “The information you provided to us was sent to the Frontex Office for Fundamental Rights, which will analyze the allegations,” Frontex added in its email.
A European media investigation behind the revelations
The complaints arise from an investigation published on Thursday by the newspaper The world in collaboration with the Lighthouse Reports organization and other European media. The world it says it has video footage of the cage used to lock up the refugees, adding that at least 34 people were detained there between mid-October and the end of November.
The makeshift cage is “made of iron bars and covered in garbage, it is visible from the street,” the newspaper says. The world he interviewed four men, Syrians and Afghans, who “told him they had been locked up there after their attempt to enter Bulgaria.” According to the newspaper, video footage shows a Frontex car visible near the cage, in the Bulgarian town of Sredets.
UNHCR says its “concern”
Frontex told AFP that since last year, its rights office has recorded ten “serious incidents” that allegedly occurred on the Bulgaria-Turkey border. “One refers to the Sredets area but has nothing to do with the conditions at the border guard post,” the agency said. The UN refugee agency UNHCR, for its part, told AFP that its representatives had not seen the images in question and could not comment on them, but were “deeply concerned by these allegations.”
“We urge the relevant states to investigate all allegations of violations and abuses,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said. “UNHCR stands ready to support States and the European Commission in establishing independent monitoring mechanisms to follow up and investigate such incidents,” he stressed.
Source: BFM TV
