SOFIA, BULGARIA (AP) – Authorities in Bulgaria have detained seven people in connection with an abandoned truck in which 18 people believed to be migrants were found dead, police said yesterday.
The bodies were discovered on Friday in a secret compartment below a load of lumber in the truck, which was left on a highway not far from Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia.
Director of Bulgaria’s National Investigation Service Borislav Sarafov confirmed that the victims died of suffocation. He called the case the country’s deadliest involving smuggled migrants.
Police also found 34 survivors in the truck, most of them in very poor physical condition, Bulgarian Health Minister Assen Medzhidiev said.
The passengers originally were from Afghanistan and entered Bulgaria from Turkiye while hoping to reach Western Europe, authorities said.
Sarafov said the people who died perished 10 to 12 hours before the truck was found and that the smugglers fled the scene after they noticed the deaths.
The seven suspects were detained at different locations across Bulgaria.
Investigators were working to determine if the truck’s driver was among them.
The investigation indicates the suspects belonged to an organised crime ring involved in smuggling migrants from the border with Turkiye to the Bulgaria-Serbia border, Sarafov said.
Passengers paid EUR5,000-7,000 each, he said.
