The new European Border and Coast Guard Agency was officially launched on 7 October on Bulgarian territory and currently has more than 190 officers monitoring this country’s borders with Turkey and with Serbia. Yet this was not enough to stop the wave of anti-immigrant protests in Sofia, Harmanli, Bourgas and Samokov over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. People are worried by the inflow of refugees at Bulgaria’s borders but also by those already in the country’s interior.

According to Interior Ministry data, during the week from 29 September until 6 October alone, 498 new migrants were intercepted in the country, bringing their number for the period since the beginning of the year up to 15,164. A great many of them do not want to be put up at the accommodation centres of the State Agency for Refugees, as they are 106 percent full. During that same week when 498 migrants entered the country, 584 people left the accommodation centres and are now roaming the country without any money, and that is something that is worrying people. The situation at the Interior Ministry accommodation centres for potentially dangerous persons and persons whose nationality is yet to be ascertained is even more dramatic. Their capacity is 169 percent filled, with 1,587 persons being put up at them even though they have a capacity of 940. That same week again only 20 people left them.

The protest in Sofia was organized on Facebook by a group of nationalists who call themselves National Resistance Movement. The people that came out to protest in the city centre shouted “Bulgaria for Bulgarians!” and demanded that the country be rid of Islamists. They stated they intended to form civilian patrols to protect the population of Sofia. In Harmanli the protest rally organized was not the first of its kind, but the second within one week and as the participants said was targeted “against the excesses of the migrants and the idleness of the police”. With a population of just a few thousand, the small town has 3,500 refugees. An invitation to tender has been issued for more caravans and people have been calling for more police and for setting up an accommodation centre of a closed type. In Bourgas the protest was against the construction of a migrant centre in the village of Zvezdets, some 40 kilometers from the city, but the participants demanded that Bulgaria be “purged” of migrants. The protests in Samokov had similar demands, though the Interior Ministry is saying it does not plan to put up a refugee centre there.

There have been such protests before, but this time the resentment is being politicized. The rally in Sofia was headed by Petar Nizamov, a notorious figure whose name came into the limelight some months ago for hunting down migrants and handcuffing them using cable ties. In his speech he demanded the expulsion of all people who have been given refugee status without justification, the prosecution of all people responsible for their being issued papers illegally, a veto on the commitments Bulgaria has assumed under the Dublin regulation and protests for overthrowing the government unless these demands are met. At this point there aren’t many people going to these protests and they are local, rather than national, but the fact that their motivation is the same, that they are getting more and more frequent, that attempts are being made to politicize them with increasingly radical demands is an indication that they will probably escalate and become even more radical. The timing and the situation in the country are conducive to such a turn of events. A campaign is underway for the upcoming presidential elections and referendum; the political situation is aggravated as it is. Whether developments will take that direction is something we shall find out in the coming days and weeks. The pre-election debates may well be accompanied by more anti-immigrant protests. There will be a rally in Sofia next Friday, this time in Lyulin residential quarter, and a week later – again at Lions’ Bridge, a location of choice in the Sofia city centre for venting public discontent.

English version: Milena Daynova