Bulgaria is EU's other migrant pressure point

Braving the Mediterranean may be the main route for refugees into Europe, but large numbers are also trying their luck via a treacherous land journey through Turkey into Bulgaria, the EU's poorest country.

At Bulgaria's main Harmanli refugee camp, 1,600 men, women and children -- mostly fleeing Syria's civil war -- are already packed like sardines into former military barracks dreaming of a safe new life in Europe.

"First we passed the border between Syria and Turkey. After that we passed the border between Turkey and Bulgaria," one of them, Muhamad Ali Al-Ismail, 29, from Kobane in Syria, told AFP in a recent visit.

"We came the illegal way. We spent two days in a jungle, a forest, with eight children," he said.

In late 2013, Bulgaria reinforced a 30-kilometre (20-mile) fence with razor wire along the most difficult part to police of its 275-kilometre border with Turkey and deployed thousands of extra police to cover the rest.

Last year the barrier helped to prevent almost 40,000 people crossing into the south-eastern European country, Bulgarian authorities say, slashing the numbers who made it to 6,000 from 11,000 in 2013.

But desperate to escape their home countries, 3,200 still made it by land into Bulgaria in the first three months of 2015.

"The numbers arriving at our camp have doubled recently to around 200-250 a week," said Yordan Malinov, director of the Harmanli camp.

"We walked until we were utterly exhausted for 17 hours from Erdine in Turkey to the first village in Bulgaria," said Dina Hesso, 30, a Syrian IT technician who trudged all the way with 10 family members.

Two refugees reportedly froze to death this winter after being turned back by Bulgarian border patrols. There are also cases of the guards having physically abused some of the migrants, rights groups say.

- German paradise -

Those trying to make it through are persistent.

"We tried to cross three times and each time we got turned back. I was scared because two families said they had been beaten up," said Syrian Kurd Abdallah Ismail, 42, who arrived only last week with his pregnant wife and four young children.

"We made it at last by hiding on a goods train," he says. According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), some 70 percent of the migrants make it into Bulgaria in this way or on trucks.

Since AFP's last visit to Harmanli in January 2014, conditions have improved dramatically. Gone are the leaky tents, there is now running water, play groups for the children and English classes.

But they still live three families to a room, and most migrants AFP spoke to are keen to move on, many to Germany, where lots already have relatives and where work is easier to find than in Bulgaria.

"A Kurd dies and arrives in paradise but he doesn't like it," says Dzinhan Sami Ali, 41, telling a joke doing the rounds at Harmanli. "'What do you want then?' says God. 'Germany,' the refugee replies."

But moving on is difficult.

Migrants mostly are given refugee status, which allows them to travel freely within the EU for three months, but not to settle down anywhere. Others get humanitarian status, obliging them to remain in Bulgaria.

Many therefore leave Bulgaria for Romania or non-EU Serbia and then try to sneak into EU member Hungary.

Unlike Bulgaria, Hungary is in the visa-free Schengen zone, meaning the migrants can travel onwards much more easily, even if they lack the necessary papers allowing them to work.

"The trickiest thing is leaving Bulgaria. Once you're in Serbia, you just need to slip the police a bribe to get into Hungary," says one migrant, giving his name as Moussa.

Around 300 euros ($325) is enough, he says.