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BULGARIA: Two Iraqis Did Make It

Claudia Ciobanu

SOFIA, Apr 28 2008 (IPS) - Bulgaria, sometimes considered a safe haven for Iraqi asylum seekers, has denied refugee status to all but two applicants from Iraq since December last year. Bulgaria’s move contributes to blocking land access to Europe for Iraqis fleeing violence.

On Wednesday, Apr. 23, six Iraqis held at the temporary detention centre for illegal aliens at Busmantsi, near capital Sofia, staged a protest by barricading themselves in one of the corridors of the building and setting a mattress on fire.

The six had been in the detention centre for several weeks. According to Catherine Hamon Sharpe, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Bulgaria, the Iraqis had intended to apply for asylum, but later changed their minds and asked to go back to Iraq, “most likely because they knew there was a greater risk not to be granted status.”

The people were supposed to leave for Iraq on Thursday Apr. 24, by flying first to Hungary and then Syria. The Bulgarian state said it could not afford to pay for their journey, so the Iraqis paid for the plane tickets themselves. They had valid entry visas for Syria, but the Hungarian government denied them access, which meant that the trip had to be postponed and another route chosen. Until their situation clarifies, the six are stuck in the detention centre.

The condition of the six Iraqis at Busmantsi highlights a change in the attitude of Bulgarian authorities towards Iraqi refugees. “Up to November 2007, almost every Iraqi asylum seeker in Bulgaria was granted protection: either humanitarian status or full refugee status,” UNHCR said in a statement issued Apr. 15. “But things are deteriorating after Bulgaria started rejecting asylum claims. UNHCR is alarmed by this sudden change of Bulgaria’s protection regime towards Iraqis.”

In 2007, 533 Iraqis sought asylum in Bulgaria and more than 90 percent of them were granted protection. But between December 2007 and March 2008, 41 applications from Iraqis were rejected. Since the beginning of December, only two Iraqis were given refugee status. Sixty others received humanitarian status.

This year, only nine Iraqis have so far crossed into Bulgaria and asked for asylum at the border. Sharpe told IPS that this seems to be a consequence of the fact that people have learnt about the shift of attitude in Sofia, and are no longer willing to risk coming to this country.

Together with Greece – where acceptance rates for asylum seekers are below one percent – Bulgaria is one of the two European Union countries bordering Turkey, making it a natural entry point for Iraqis travelling by land in search for refuge in Europe.

In response to the concerns expressed by UNHCR, Bulgarian authorities claim that they have merely become more rigorous in assessing applications and making status determination rulings. “We are looking more realistically at cases and we have refused a number of asylum claims,” said Todor Zhivkov, director of the Reception Centre for Refugees in Sofia.

UNHCR, on the other hand, maintains that the most likely reason for the increased refusal rate is that there is not enough capacity in Bulgaria to host the asylum seekers. Otherwise, the profile of the applicants has not changed since 2007 so as to justify the increased rejection rate.

Since 1993, 16,602 people have sought refuge in Bulgaria. The largest inflow of asylum seekers came in 2002, when Bulgarian authorities dealt with 2,888 applications, most of them from Afghans. Since 2002, application numbers dropped, only to slightly increase again between 2006 and 2007, from 639 to 975 – this time on account of the larger number of Iraqis looking for protection. Acceptance rates have usually been good, with around 5,500 people being granted refugee or humanitarian status since 1993.

Bulgaria currently has two main reception centres for refugees, one in Sofia with a capacity of 400 and one in the village Banya, which can hold 70 people. The detention centre at Busmantsi can host around 300. Technically, once a person has filed an asylum claim, they should be moved from the detention centre to the reception points, where they have freedom to move, and better conditions. But lately more and more asylum applicants have been held at Busmantsi.

“With a view to implementing the Dublin II Regulation, the Bulgarian government passed an ordinance which allows asylum-seekers to be transferred and kept at Busmantsi,” Sharpe told IPS, “a practice which violates asylum law.”

The UNHCR Representative said that although the authorities in Sofia have adopted the necessary legislation for the protection of asylum seekers, implementation remains deficient.

Bulgarian authorities further argue that the current situation in Iraq permits people from the conflict zones to seek refuge in the more stable northern regions of Iraq.

But, according to Linda Awanis, Chairperson of the Council for Refugee Women in Bulgaria, in order for Iraqis in the south to move to the Kurdish areas, they need a resident from the north to stand guarantee for them, as well as to specify the length of their stay, conditions difficult to meet.

Awanis, an Iraqi refugee herself, acts as an informal link between people in the detention and reception centres and the outside world. Iraqis who arrive in Bulgaria pass to one another her telephone number and call her from the centres when they need medicines, milk for babies, clothes, even sanitary pads. Because the Bulgarian authorities often lack the money to provide basic care, Awanis searches for private donors.

Most newly arrived Iraqis say that although there are good jobs in their country, “the moment you get out of the house to go to work, your life is in danger.”

One of the Iraqis granted refugee status in Bulgaria was a young woman who used to be a teacher of Arabic and a layout designer for newspapers. “She came here after she had been kidnapped and beaten by groups – we don’t even know which groups – and her family had to pay ransom for her,” Awanis told IPS.

In Bulgaria, refugees who complete a one-year programme of integration, learning Bulgarian and getting vocational training, usually end up working in construction (the men) and as sales clerks or hairdressers (the women).

But Awanis says Iraqis are happy in Bulgaria because there is peace here, unlike in Iraq.

“Now, in Iraq, you don’t know from whom to save yourself,” she says. “Before (with Saddam Hussein in power) you were afraid from one source. But now you don’t know any more, you don’t know what will happen next.”