Amnesty slams Bulgaria role as EU's 'gatekeeper'

(SOFIA) - Amnesty activists erected a symbolic wall in the heart of downtown Sofia Friday to denounce Bulgaria's "gatekeeper" role shutting migrants out of the European Union.

About 80 rights activists from 30 countries staged a silent vigil next to a two-metre-tall (6.6-feet-tall) fence symbolising Europe's external border.

"European member states are building their walls higher and higher," John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia programme director, said in a statement

"This is at the expense of the rights and lives of refugees and migrants."

The group blamed Bulgaria and other states for acting as "gatekeepers to Fortress Europe," and forcing would-be migrants to take increasingly dangerous measures to make their way into the bloc.

Bulgaria forms part of the southern border of the 28-nation bloc, and was overwhelmed by the arrival last year of over 11,000 mostly Syrian asylum seekers.

The country, the bloc's poorest, is now nearing completion on a 30-kilometre, three-metre-tall razor wire barrier along part of its border with Turkey.

Amnesty and other rights groups have denounced the deployment of thousands of border police and sophisticated surveillance systems both aimed at checking the influx of migrants.

"Rather than keeping people out, these preventative migration measures are simply forcing migrants and refugees to take increasingly dangerous routes to Europe," Dalhuisen said, urging European authorities to "put people before borders".