The German government has announced that it will deport 86 refugees, including Kurds, to Bulgaria in the near future. The close relations of the Sofia government with the Erdogan regime in recent years cause serious concern for refugees.
Ignoring the international agreements that stipulate the protection of refugees, Bulgaria extradited Kurdish politician Selahattin Ürün to the Turkish state last September.
Ürün, HDP mayoral co-candidate on March 31 local elections for Uludere town of Sirnak, was forced to get out of Turkey illegally due to a court’s final order sentencing him and was arrested in Bulgaria in January.
Ürün remained in prison for 9 months and was deported illegally to Turkey on September 29 without waiting for his trial in immigration court in Bulgaria. He was put in prison in Edirne. It came out later that Turkish intelligence and Bulgarian security units had worked in coordination in the process of extradition.
While Bulgarian PM Bojko Borissow established close relations with Erdogan’s regime, it is reported that the number of accepted asylum applications from Turkey remained very few in Bulgaria between the years 2014-2019.
Despite this, Angela Merkel’s government is sending a large number of refugees to Bulgaria, citing the Dublin agreement, which envisions sending refugees to a European country where they first set foot.
86 REFUGEES WILL BE DEPORTED IN THE FIRST PHASE
Responding to a parliamentary question by German Left Party deputy Helin Evrim Sommer, the Merkel government announced that preparations were made to deport 371 asylum seekers to Bulgaria this year.
German newspaper ‘Neues Deutschland’ revealed that 86 of these refugees were accepted by the Sofia government and will be deported soon.
It is reported that at least three of the refugees to be deported to Bulgaria in the first place are Kurds, while Left Party deputy Sommer reacted to the decision of the federal government.
Sommer said Kurdish politician Selahattin Ürün was illegally extradited to Turkey, adding that asylum seekers in question should not be deported to Bulgaria in order to prevent further illegal deportations.
"I hope the federal government takes this into account," said Sommer, pointing to the cooperation of the Sofia government with the Erdogan regime.
