Migrants intercepted and currently investigated in Mangalia, Romania

Three boats with over 200 migrants aboard were intercepted by the Romanian Border Police in the Black Sea. 120 of them, discovered in a fishing vessel at about 17 nautical miles from the Romanian-Bulgarian border, were handed over to the Turkish authorities. Another 97 refugees from Iran and Iraq, including 36 children, are now in Mangalia for screening. In this case, the investigations are coordinated by a prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office attached to the Constanţa Court of Appeal - as Coast Guard Border Police Chief Officer Laurenţiu Cristian Cicu mentioned for Radio Romania News (RRA).

Laurenţiu Cristian Cicu:Investigations are currently taking place under the coordination of the prosecutor from the Prosecutor's Office attached to Constanţa Court of Appeal. Investigation has not finished yet, we have not reached a conclusion. We’re working on it.

The 97 migrants are now at the Mangalia Group of Ships, where the investigation is also taking place.

The Romanian Border Police has recently announced several measures to strengthen the border surveillance system. Migrants’ requests for asylum in Romania do not mean that will all get approval – said Gabriela Leu,UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Romania.

Gabriela Leu: There are very well trained people in the Romanian Ministry of Administration and Interior and the General Inspectorate for Immigration, who can establish, at the end of the asylum-request procedure, whether a person has a well-founded asylum claim. If a person does not have a legitimate asylum claim, then the person will not be protected by the Romanian state, that person will not be granted refugee status. It is very simple. And we do not have to fear that people will come, that we won’t know anything about them, that they have no documents and so on. I heard all kinds of rumors, but we have to trust the authorities. If someone gets to be recognized as a refugee, then that person has been through the whole filter of the asylum-granting procedure.

Source:RRA.Translated by Miruna Matei