“The moment when we crossed they were waiting for us in cars”

The respondent is a 30-year-old man from Morocco. He reported that he had been pushed back from Bulgaria to Turkey in a group of six Moroccans (including one woman), one person from Tunisia, one person from Egypt and one from Syria – 10 people in total. The respondent did not remember the date of the incident but stated that it must have been in the second half of March. The group met the two people from Egypt and Syria in the forest just before the river close to Edirne, and decided to attempt to cross the river together. The water was about 1.5 meters high, so it was difficult to walk through. The respondent stated that the woman in the group was quite small and so had troubles crossing. He recalls she was about to drown, so they tried to help her. He states: “The moment when we crossed, they were waiting for us in cars”. The people waiting were wearing green uniforms, with silver reflective stripes and raincoats, which seems to match the description of the Bulgarian border police. He said that they turned on the light of the cars as soon as the group had crossed the river. He recalls seeing 8 officers, in two cars, and all male. Some of them were talking in English. The respondent thinks the officers saw the group through the cameras which were on the fence on the Bulgarian side of the border pointing towards the river, even though the group had tried to cross at an angle where they thought that they could not be seen.