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“They fed our food to the dogs”
The respondent is a 22 year old man from Afghanistan. At the time of the incident he was part of group of 25 people, all from Afghanistan, among which 20 were under 18 years old. Late at night on the 19th of June 2025 the group attempted to cross the border between Turkey and Bulgaria. The respondent was unable to provide any details on the location of where this took place because the location was fully surrounded by forest with no identifiable objects around.
After walking around 2 hours from the border, the group was found by the police. There were from 8 to 10 officers, dressed in a uniform with a Bulgarian flag on the shoulder, face coverings, and armed with guns (that one of the group members described as a M4 rifle), as well as tasers and dogs. The policemen were speaking Bulgarian, sometimes using Google to translate into English. They kept shouting at the people to look down and not look at them, which is why the respondent was unable to provide more details on their uniform. The officers used their guns to shoot in the air in order to intimidate the group. They also used tasers and batons directly on the group members and allowed dogs to get close enough to bite the jackets of the people.After intercepting the group, the police took away their money, phones, food, and clothes, leaving them only in their underwear. The phones they then broke in front of the group, and some of the food they fed to the dogs. The police then made the group walk back to the border on foot.
The respondent mentions that this was not the first push back that they have experienced. Since January they have made at least 7 attempts to cross into Bulgaria, and each time they were intercepted and pushed back to Turkey. In the winter the police used other violent techniques, such as stripping people naked and pouring cold water on them in temperatures below freezing.
overview
25 people ,
from Afghanistan,
aged 5 between 16 and 22, others unknown.