Eight-year-old Asser has been living in the refugee camp in Harmanli for two months now. She is one of over 3,600 children who have sought protection in Bulgaria since the beginning of 2023.

"Children are the most innocent victims of war," says Katya Dimitrova. She is part of the team of the Legal Aid Program for Refugees and Migrants of BHK. Together with her colleagues they are among the first to meet the refugee children on Bulgarian territory.

 Over the past five years, BHK, together with recent @UNICEF - Bulgaria has helped more than 5,600 unaccompanied children receive temporary freedom from immigration detention, legal information and assistance, and support for reunification with these families.

In Bulgaria, unaccompanied children are usually accommodated in the so-called "safe zones", built in two of the registration and reception centers of the State Agency for Refugees in Sofia. In these areas, additional care and support is provided, taking into account the vulnerable situation of unaccompanied refugee children. Currently, with the support of UNICEF, a third safe zone for unaccompanied children is being built at the registration and reception center in Harmanli. In recent years, however, more and more unaccompanied children come to Bulgaria, and there are fewer places in these centers than the children in need. Many children remain without the opportunity to use the special protection that the state owes them. A few are the unaccompanied, placed in social services for children within the framework of the national child protection system in our country, and most often these are children of a very young age, for whom intensive care is needed.

You can find more about the work of the Program for Legal Protection of Refugees and Migrants of BHC here: https://bghelsinki.org/bg/programs/refugees-and-migrants-legal-aid-program

as well as on the specialized website: https: //asylum.bg/bg/info-bg

See the story in the video.