CNN
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Bulgarian prosecutors charged six people traffickers after 18 Afghans was found dead inside the truck spilled on a dirt road near the capital Sofia on Friday.
Prosecutors said the lorry was abandoned near the village of Lokorsko after the driver and his companion discovered that many of the 52 migrants on the lorry had been dizzy and one number of people who died. The migrants stayed in the hidden compartments of the lorry, which were isolated with foil.
Prosecutors said the truck driver and his companion were also charged with the deaths.
The head of the National Investigation Service and Deputy Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov told reporters that despite the strong and prolonged impact on the cabin, the driver had refused to stop the truck earlier.
The deaths shocked Bulgaria, one of the worst incidents of its kind on the trans-Balkan route into Europe.
Thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia make the journey, and Bulgaria has been trying to cope with the growing influx of migrants from neighboring Turkey over the past year.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, that country has fallen into an economic recession and humanitarian crisis. According to a recent report report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), an estimated 28.3 million people – about two-thirds of Afghanistan’s population – are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance to survive. Last month, a Taliban official said at least 157 people had been killed during the harsh winter in the country.
Mr Sarafov said 18 victims died from lack of oxygen in the enclosed space and difficulty breathing when crammed into the truck “like in a tin can”.
“The victims died slowly and painfully,” he added.
“This case shows an extreme callousness and demonstrates that migrants are only seen as goods that should be transported from one place to another, whether they are alive or dead,” he said.
Officials said the other 34 migrants, who were taken to hospital on Friday, remained in stable condition.
Five of the accused are in custody, while one of the suspected traffickers, who has fled the country, is wanted with a European arrest warrant.
Prosecutors say the ring trafficked migrants from the border with Turkey via Bulgaria to Serbia, from where they continued their journey mainly to Britain, Germany and France.
