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Afghan refugee shot dead by Bulgarian police near border with Turkey

The man, from Afghanistan, was with a large group of refugees who reportedly resisted arrest

Friday 16 October 2015 07:17 BST

The man was fatally wounded when a border police officer said bullet fired in a warning shot ricocheted and hit him. (AFP/Getty Images)

A man from Afghanistan has been shot dead by police in Bulgaria in front of his fellow refugees.

Bulgaria’s interior ministry said he was with a large group of “offenders” who had crossed the border from Turkey as they journeyed on the Balkans route towards western Europe.

“Our border patrol of border guards and police in the area had stumbled on 50 offenders, who illegally entered the country,” Georgi Kostov, the ministry’s chief secretary, told national radio.

“They put up resistance during the arrest. One of the officers fired warning shots and, in his words, one of the migrants was wounded by a ricochet and later died.”

He said the rest of the Afghan asylum seekers, aged between 20 and 30, and were not injured and had been detained around 18 miles from the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

Local media reported that the shooting happened beneath a bridge on the motorway from Burgas to Sredets at around 10pm local time on Thursday night.

Kalina Chapkanova, the public prosecutor for Burgas region, was quoted as saying that all the refugees were unarmed young men but that the “balance of power” was with them rather than the three Interior Ministry employees.

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A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016.

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Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea

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Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016.

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Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border

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A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.

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A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany

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Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees

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A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district

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Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast.

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A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos

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A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said

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Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year

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The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos

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Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos

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An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos

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A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija

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Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day

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An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France

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A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea

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Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

Prosecutors are investigating the death - the first fatal shooting since refugees started flowing through Bulgaria two years ago.

The Prime Minister, Boiko Borisov, left a European Union summit on the refugee crisis in Brussels to return home after hearing of the incident.

The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) condemned the use of force and appealed to Bulgaria not to treat refugees like criminals.

“We, at UNHCR, are deeply shocked by this incident,” said spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov.

“We deplore the death of an Afghan asylum seeker, trying to reach safety across the border. We call on the Bulgarian authorities to conduct an immediate, transparent and independent investigation. Seeking asylum is an universal human right and not a crime.”

The Black Sea state, which is a member of the EU but not of the border-free Schengen Area, has deployed more border police, installed cameras and motion sensors, and is extending a security fence to cover 100 miles of its border with Turkey.

At least 11,000 asylum seekers have entered Bulgaria since January and the number is expected to reach 15,000 by the end of the year. Most are fleeing Syria and use Bulgaria as a transit route to wealthier countries such as Germany and Sweden.

Additional reporting by Reuters