Shots at the EU’s external border?: Bulgaria denies, EU calls for clarification

What exactly is happening at the EU’s external borders? There has long been talk of pushbacks, and a refugee is said to have been shot at in Bulgaria in October. The country’s interior minister denies this, and European politicians are calling for clarification.

Is there live shooting at the EU’s external border? This suspicion surfaced after European media published a video showing a young Syrian being shot at the border fence between Bulgaria and Turkey on October 3.

The Bulgarian authorities denied that a shot was fired from their side. Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev instead referred yesterday to the violence emanating from refugees:

A Bulgarian police officer was shot dead at the border about a month ago. The Turkish police arrested two drug smugglers in this connection. As of now, there is no connection to refugees. In recent weeks, however, there have been repeated serious accidents involving tractor vehicles on Bulgarian roads. Two police officers died in one of them.

Four times as many attempted border crossings

Bulgaria is feeling the full impact of the increasing number of attempted border crossings into the EU. So far this year there have been 150,000 attempts, four times more than a year ago. At the same time, other EU countries are putting pressure on them: Austria, for example, repeatedly criticizes the fact that too many migrants enter the EU through Bulgaria.

So does Bulgaria have to show more toughness? MEP Erik Marquardt counters: “I believe that in recent years we have made the mistake of believing that it is important that fewer and fewer refugees appear in the statistics and arrive at the external borders.”

“People must keep their human dignity”

In the end, according to Marquardt, it must be a matter of looking at the rule of law at the external border: Who got asylum there and who didn’t? “People must be allowed to apply for asylum. But they must also be allowed to retain their human dignity at the European external border.”

Marquardt is now calling for an independent investigation into the exchange of fire at the Bulgarian border. While Bulgaria maintains that there is no evidence of a shot from its side, European media research suggests otherwise: According to a forensic sound analysis, the shot probably came from the direction of the border fence, from about 30 meters away.

Was it just a warning shot?

British military expert Charlie McGrath points out that only rifles are accurate at this range, but smaller weapons are not. “You can deviate from half a meter to a whole meter. It can be intended as a warning shot and hit a person.”

So it remains unclear for the time being what exactly happened at the border. However, after pushbacks and violence at Europe’s external borders were repeatedly criticized, Erik Marquardt called for the EU to take a closer look at what is happening there: