site.btaYouths' Confrontation in Bansko: Case Reaches Prosecution Service, Those Involved Have Been Identified

Proceedings have been opened in connection with the incident involving a verbal confrontation between Bulgarian and Italian youths outside a hotel in the Bulgarian mountain resort of Bansko, and the case has been referred to the competent prosecution office. All those involved have been identified, and police have established that the Bulgarian youths are minors, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

The incident, which took place on August 2, first came to public attention on Tuesday through reports in the Italian media claiming that a group of neo-Nazis had attempted to storm a hotel in Sofia where a group of young Italian Jews were staying. Later that day, Sofia's Interior Ministry Directorate (SDVR) said it had launched an inquiry after learning of the reports through the media, although no official complaint had been filed. The Interior Ministry subsequently clarified that the incident had occurred in Bansko, not Sofia.

Speaking at a news briefing on Wednesday, Bansko District Police Department chief Hristiyan Parmakov said police had received a report at around 11.30 p.m. on August 2 about individuals threatening violence outside a hotel. Officers dispatched to the scene established that no physical fight had taken place and identified all those involved.

"According to preliminary findings, it can be assumed that the group staying at the hotel provoked passers-by by making offensive gestures and signs," Parmakov said.

He added that the foreign group had arrived in Bansko around two weeks earlier and had been the subject of repeated complaints over disorderly behaviour. According to police, the complaints concerned excessive noise after 11 p.m., throwing objects from balconies and windows, making offensive gestures at passers-by and verbally abusing them. One report also alleged that some members of the group had climbed over fences and entered private properties belonging to Bansko residents. Parmakov said the hotel manager filed a report estimating damage to the property at EUR 15,000.

Hotel manager Asen Levov also said police had been called to the hotel on several occasions to help calm the group and deal with other problems they had caused. According to Levov, the incident that later attracted widespread attention was neither the first nor the only one involving the group. It was a rather large group, consisting of 200 children and 40 staff members organized by an Israeli organization running summer camps for children from around the world, he said.

Bansko Mayor Stoycho Banenski said the police and municipal authorities had responded appropriately to the incident involving the Italian students.

"We urge the law enforcement authorities to carry out their work. The normalization of hate speech and antisemitism leads to manifestations that are harmful to every society, and particularly to Bulgaria at this time," said Alina Levi, chair of the Shalom Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria, speaking to reporters at the Jewish Cultural Centre in Sofia in response to the reports published in the Italian media.

The Foreign Ministry said Bulgaria unequivocally condemns all forms of antisemitism and is deeply concerned by reports of antisemitic acts targeting a group of young Italian Jews. "Such acts are unacceptable and have no place in a democratic society," the ministry said in a post on the social media network X.