Bulgaria’s State Agency for Refugees (SAR) has informed about a sudden spike in migratory pressure on the country in 2015.

Speaking at a conference organized by MEP Svetoslav Malinov, SAR Chair Nikola Kazakov said that a total of 11 742 people had applied for protection in Bulgaria by September 23, 2015, compared to a total of 1025 in 2010.

Kazakov, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), informed that over 33 000 people had applied for protection in Bulgaria in 5 years and 9300 of the total had been granted refugee status.

He emphasized that the largest group was that of Syrian nationals, followed by Iraqi nationals.

Kazakov said that the applicants for protection were with low levels of educational attainment as a whole.

He vowed that the capacity of the accommodation centers would increase, adding that there were translators at all of the facilities and that all of the sites had been equipped with medical units.

During the conference, Boryana Dimitrova from polling agency Alpha Research informed that 63% of Bulgarians believed that the refugee influx was a threat to the country.

She said that 89% of those polled insisted that Bulgaria had to combat human smuggling channels, while 76% of the respondents said that the border fence had to be fortified.

Only 11% of those polled were optimistic that Europe would cope with the refugee crisis successfully.

63% of the respondents backed the quota system for the distribution of refugees.

The survey of Alpha Research was conducted in the period September 5-7, 2015 at the request of the Bulgarian National Television.