Bulgaria restricts movement of asylum seekers

SOFIA: Bulgaria's government announced on Thursday restrictions on the movement of asylum seekers within the country, including approaching borders to try and continue their way to western Europe.
"The aim is to establish a strict administrative control for the period when their asylum claims are being examined," a government statement said.
Asylum seekers will no longer be able to leave the district where they are being housed. In the case of Sofia, which has three migrant centres, they are not allowed to leave the capital.
The European Union's poorest member state, which is not in the border-free Schengen zone, has until now largely been a transit country for migrants crossing from Turkey on their way to western Europe.
However numbers have fallen sharply since the closure of the "Balkan route" in early 2016 and the strengthening of border fences along Bulgaria's frontier with Turkey.
It now has 1,268 people in its asylum centres, which are around a quarter full. In the first seven months of the year, 1,930 migrants were intercepted trying to leave the country, mostly into Serbia.
"We will defend people who are fleeing war and death but economic migrants are a different subject," Prime Minister Boyko Borisov told a joint news conference on Wednesday with visiting Polish counterpart Beata Szydlo.
The new measures are similar to those in Hungary, where asylum seekers are confined to centres close the Serbian border. — AFP