Five Illegal Residential Buildings Demolished in Bulgaria's Garmen

The demolition of the illegal residential buildings in Garmen has now been completed, as reported by Focus information agency.

A total of four buildings have been removed from the site out of all 124. They were all demolished using a bulldozer and the Roma people in the neighborhood tore down another house by themselves.

The next stage of the demolition process is set for July 13, when additional two buildings will be removed from the Roma neighborhood.

However, prior to the demolition, people had the chance to take their bricks and wood from the house construction. This could in theory make it easy for them to rebuild their buildings all over again.

''We would like to pay our taxes and to legalize our buildings,'' some of the Roma people said in an interview. ''Why are they tearing us down instead of the illegal hotels and even castles all over the country?''

Some of them even threatened that they will move and set camp in front of the municipal building in town. They first started singing a widely popular patriotic song by singer and composer Emil Dimitrov, ''Moya strana moya Bulgaria''. Eventually, however, they started demolishing one of the houses themselves.

The action itself has been used as a solution to an ethnic tension scandal in the Garmen community when Roma and Bulgarian people engaged in fights because of loud music and frequent thefts.

Garmen taxpayers threatened that they are ready to stage a civil unrest if the illegal buildings in the Kremikovtsi neighborhood are not removed.