A van carrying nine migrants who entered Bulgaria illegally crashed while being chased by police near the country's eastern Black Sea coast, killing six, officials said on Friday.
The incident occurred near the city of Burgas shortly before midnight on Thursday as police tried to stop the vehicle, which had Romanian registration plates, Border Police Chief Anton Zlatanov told reporters.
He said the driver repeatedly refused to stop at the signals given and attempted to evade spike strips set by the police.
The driver lost control and the van slipped off the road, overturned and plunged into a lake bordering the highway, killing six migrants at the scene.
Four others, including the Romanian driver, sustained minor injuries and were given first aid at the scene and then taken to hospital.
Preliminary information suggested that the migrants were from Afghanistan.
Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 6.5 million, is located on what was once a major route for migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Europe, passing through Iran and Turkey.
The popularity of that route has fallen in recent years. More than 21,000 irregular migrants arrived in the EU via the Western Balkans route, a fall of 78% on 2021's figures, according to the EU's border control agency Frontex.
Only a small number of them plan to stay in the EU’s poorest member, using Bulgaria instead as a transit corridor on their way westward.
Zlatanov said that over the past two years up to 20 organised criminal groups involved in migrant trafficking have been neutralised.
"Zero migration is not possible because these are global processes. However, we have reduced migration pressure by about 70% compared with last year," he said.
