(AFP) Bulgaria on Monday deployed 350 soldiers to the border with Turkey to help police cope with the growing influx of migrants, the defence minister announced.
“Soldiers arrived at the Bulgarian-Turkish border since today to back up the border police,” Georgi Panayotov told the private bTV channel.
The 350 troops deployed with 40 units of equipment, he added.
This year has already seen more than 6,500 people cross illegally into Bulgaria, three times the numbers for the first nine months of 2020, according to the interior ministry.
The east European country sits on one of the main routes migrants use to enter the EU from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
