A man from Afghanistan has been shot dead by police in Bulgaria in front of his fellow refugees.
Bulgaria’s interior ministry said he was with a large group of “offenders” who had crossed the border from Turkey as they journeyed on the Balkans route towards western Europe.
“Our border patrol of border guards and police in the area had stumbled on 50 offenders, who illegally entered the country,” Georgi Kostov, the ministry’s chief secretary, told national radio.
“They put up resistance during the arrest. One of the officers fired warning shots and, in his words, one of the migrants was wounded by a ricochet and later died.”
He said the would-be refugees were of Afghan origin, aged between 20 and 30, and were detained in good condition near Sredets, 18 miles from the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
Prosecutors are investigating the death - the first fatal incident since refugees started flowing through Bulgaria two years ago.
The Prime Minister, Boiko Borisov, left a European Union summit on the refugee crisis in Brussels to return home after hearing of the incident.
The Black Sea state, which is a member of the EU but not of the border-free Schengen Area, has deployed more border police, installed cameras and motion sensors, and is extending a security fence to cover 100 miles of its border with Turkey.
Tens of thousands of migrants, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria, are trying to reach Western Europe through the country and its neighbours, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia.
The spokesman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Boris Cheshirkov, condemned the use of power against migrants and appealed to Bulgaria to investigate the incident transparently and thoroughly.
Additional reporting by Reuters
