Afghan migrant killed in scuffle with Bulgaria border police

An Afghan migrant was accidentally shot as Bulgarian police tried to detain a group of 55 undocumented migrants who have illegally crossed the border from Turkey and resisted, the Interior Ministry said.

The migrant was killed by a ricocheting bullet when a Bulgarian border guard fired a warning shot in the air near the southern town of Sredets at 10 pm on Thursday, Georgi Kostov, chief secretary of the Interior Ministry in Sofia, said in a live television broadcast on Friday. The regional prosecution office in the city of Bourgas is investigating the shooting, he said.

"We detained 54 men without documents, apparently between 20 and 30 years old, while they were crossing a rugged mountainous terrain," Kostov said. "They will be transferred to the refugee centre for registration" in the southern town of Elhovo, he said.

With more than a million migrants set to reach the European Union this year, and more expected as a result of Russian bombing raids in Syria, Turkey is the focus of efforts to stem the wave of refugees who often travel on into the bloc. The EU has a draft accord with Turkey on curtailing the flow of migrants and refugees. Aid to Turkey of Euro 3 billion ($3.4 billion) was discussed at a summit in Brussels late on Thursday, but the issue has yet to win full support from the 28-nation bloc.

Bulgaria has agreed to receive 852 refugees under the EU's system of distributing immigrants. The EU's poorest member in terms of per-capita output now shelters 1,200 migrants in its refugee centres, 900 of whom are Afghan, Kostov said. The Balkan country is setting up a wire fence along its 160-kilometre (99-mile) border with Turkey, of which about a 30-kilometre section is in place. Most migrants avoid being registered in Bulgaria as they head to Germany and other affluent European nations.

"The profile of the undocumented migrants has changed," Kostov said. "In the summer they were mostly mixed groups with women and children. In this case the group was different."