Head of Bulgaria’s Harmanli refugee centre dismissed
The head of Bulgaria’s State Agency for Refugees, Nikola Kazakov, has fired the director of the Harmanli refugee centre, Marko Petrov.
The order dismissing Petrov was issued on January 27 but could not be handed to him personally, reportedly because he was in hospital. Notice of his dismissal has been given by being posted at the refugee centre and on the agency’s website.
According to a report by Bulgarian National Radio, an inspection of the refugee camp found breaches of regulations.
The report said that it was expected that Yordan Malinov, who formerly was director of the camp, would be returned to the post.
Kazakov was appointed head of the State Agency for Refugees in January 2015 by the centre-right coalition cabinet that took office in November 2014.
He was head of the agency from 2010 to 2013, having been appointed by the previous Boiko Borissov cabinet that was in office from 2009 to 2013.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party-Movement for Rights and Freedoms government of 2013/14 gave the job to Nikolai Chirpanliev in October 2013, at a time that Bulgaria was facing a significant increase in asylum-seekers from the Middle East and North Africa, many of the arrivals across the Turkish border being the result of the crisis in Syria.
(Photo: EC Audiovisual Service)
