MV Louise Michel on Nostr: The Balkan route is a major land crossing into the #EU. Since 2014, at least 250 ...

The Balkan route is a major land crossing into the #EU. Since 2014, at least 250 people have died there, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project. Many more disappear without a trace, with the #RedCross estimating that nearly 90% of missing people on these routes are never found.

This makes the #Balkan not only a very deadly but also the most undocumented route through #Europe. People drown in rivers, freeze in woods, suffocate in trucks, or simply vanish undocumented, unnamed, erased.

In December 2024, three teenagers from #Egypt died of hypothermia near the #Bulgaria – #Turkey border. NGOs @NoNameKitchen and @CollettivoRotteBalcaniche documented that Bulgarian authorities blocked rescue teams, ignored emergency calls, and left them to die. This was not negligence, it was deliberate abandonment.

Bulgaria’s border regime is a frontline of Europe’s external border machine. With funds and support from the EU and agencies like #Frontex, the route is being more and more militarised and human beings contained.

This has to stop. We need safe passage for everyone.
Borders kill, on land and at sea.
Freedom of movement for all!