site.btaDeputy PM Zafirov: Bulgaria Acts Adequately Trying to Care for Refugee Children
Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Zafirov said here on Tuesday that Bulgaria is responding adequately to the challenge of building a sustainable model for caring for refugee children. Zafirov was speaking at the Council of Ministers during a presentation of a project dedicated to creating alternative social services for unaccompanied refugee children in Bulgaria.
According to the Minister, this project represents important first steps towards building a sustainable model for the care of refugee children. He congratulated the newly elected leadership of the State Agency for Refugees, representatives of the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the mayors of Burgas, Malko Tarnovo, Ivaylovgrad, and Tundzha, as well as all those involved in this pilot project for dignified protection.
Zafirov said: "Europe has placed a very serious emphasis in recent years on the protection and asylum of unaccompanied refugee children, and this is no coincidence, because the statistics are indeed very alarming." He reported that Bulgaria is among the countries with the highest percentage of refugee children but also among the first to respond to this challenge in an adequate manner.
According to Zafirov, Bulgaria is one of seven EU Member States to have defended with dignity the need to establish this type of social support for refugee children, which should be both a source of pride and a source of great responsibility.
He spoke about his visit to the Safe Zone for unaccompanied refugee children in Harmanli, South Central Bulgaria, that took place in late March, and about his meeting with Christina de Bruin, UNICEF Representative in Bulgaria. He concluded that it is essential to create an environment in which every child feels truly protected.
/PP/
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