Bulgaria urges EU action on Syria refugee crisis

Bulgaria pushed on Wednesday for an EU-wide refugee strategy as it struggles to cope with a mass influx of asylum-seekers, the majority of them Syrian. "We have repeatedly highlighted the need for a common European refugee system that would allow flexible resource management and the possibility for refugee relocation within the bloc on the basis of objective criteria," Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said after a national security council on the refugee issue. Bulgaria -- the poorest country in the bloc and its outermost border to the southeast -- has found itself grossly unprepared to welcome the more than 10,000 refugees, including Syrians fleeing conflict at home, who have entered the country illegally so far this year from Turkey. The cash-strapped country's limited shelters are overflowing, with refugees housed instead in deserted schools, dilapidated army barracks, metal containers or tents, and a humanitarian crisis looming as winter draws near. Slow claim procedures have worsened the situation, sparking protest sit-ins and a hunger strike among refugees, whose living conditions Amnesty International dubbed "inhumane" in a statement on Tuesday. Struggling to cope with the influx, Bulgaria has started turning refugees back at the border and Yovchev said it will pursue this policy despite criticism from the U.N. refugee agency. The U.N. high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres and the European humanitarian aid commissioner, Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, arrive on a one-day visit to Bulgaria on Friday. Bulgarians, themselves mired in poverty, have been increasingly resentful of the refugees, with a Gallup institute poll showing Tuesday that as many as 55 percent of people considered it "unfair" to allocate more money to refugees. Recent months have seen several immigrants beaten in the street, and a new nationalist party formed. "The escalation of xenophobic acts and the attacks against foreigners create a conflict potential that can have long-lasting consequences for Bulgaria's reputation, economy, investment," President Rosen Plevneliev warned at the council lasting more than six hours on Wednesday. He urged all political leaders to "refrain from planting xenophobia, hatred and divisions in society", with the Socialist-backed cabinet already reeling from five months of anti-poverty street protests.