Georgi Kostov

Since the beginning of the year, Bulgarian authorities have detained 27 000 foreign citizens, who had crossed into the country illegally.

This was announced by Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry Georgi Kostov in an interview for private NOVA TV station on Monday.

A Bulgarian parliament commission will hold a hearing of top Interior Ministry officials about last week's protests by members of police force on Tuesday.

A sitting of the Home Security and Public Order Commission  is scheduled to start at 3 p.m.(1300 GMT).

Police officers' retirement compensations will be cut in half, and paid leave will be reduced from 30 to 20 days as of Wednesday, November 04, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has said.

Bulgaria's government may reconsider a controversial decision to impose pay cuts at the Interior Ministry as early as next year, Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova said on Tuesday.

Police officers blocked traffic in the central part of Sofia on Tuesday to protest cuts in their remuneration packages planned in the 2016 budget draft.

The Finance Ministry is proposing to cut in half the sum paid upon retirement, decrease the extra remuneration allocated for each year in service and cut the period of annual paid leave.

A scuffle broke out late on Sunday as "far-right" leader Volen Siderov broke into the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts (NATFA) building in downtown Sofia and was taken out by dozens of police officers.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) on Tuesday disputed the official version of last week's incident, in which an Afghan migrant was shot by Bulgarian border police after illegally crossing into Bulgaria from Turkey and died on his way to hospital.

Bulgaria's President Rosen Plevneliev on Friday called for a rapid joint European response to the roots of the continuing migration crisis to prevent "tragic incidents" like the shooting death of an illegal migrant at the country's border with Turkey.

A bullet fired as a warning to a group of migrants near Bulgaria's border with Turkey has ricocheted off a bridge, claiming the life of one of the migrants hiding under it, sources say.

An Afghan man died in Bulgaria after being indirectly hit by a bullet of border police on Thursday, authorities say.

The incident took place around 22:00 local time (EEST), the Interior Ministry's Chief Secretary, Georgi Kostov, has announced.

Pretrial proceedings have been launched.