Human geography

BELGRADE - Nenad Banovic, president of the Commission tasked with monitoring the visa-free regime, stated on Wednesday that the number of fake asylum seekers from Serbia has reduced since the beginning of the year, including the number of those seeking asylum in Germany, where the problem was the most acute.

The number of active Bulgarians has decreased in 2013, shows the data of the National Statistics Institute (NSI). 

In 2013 they were 4.47 million people, or 61.7% of the entire population. The number has decreased by 0.7% (33 000 people), in spite the extension of retirement age by four months. 

Bulgarian folk costumes were worn for the first time in the 2014 Seychelles International Carnival of Victoria.

PR expert Maxim Behar, Honorary Consul of Republic of Seychelles to Bulgaria, and two Seychelles children wore Bulgarian folk costumes during a parade before a crowd of some  25 000 people.

The Bulgarian Red Cross expressed support for the Interior Ministry over a Human Rights Watch report harshly criticizing the country´s immigration policies.

Human Rights Watch is a fraudulent organization which cynically manipulates public opinion, president of Bulgaria's State Agency for Refugees Nikolai Chirpanliev claimed.

Bulgaria's Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev said he was surprised by the claims in the Human Rights Watch report on the country's immigration policies. 

The report, which will be officially released next week claims that the Bulgarian border police was forcefully pushing back into Turkish territory asylum seeker and was beating and abusing them. 

2,055 asylum requests registered in Serbia

BELGRADE -- A total of 2,055 people requested asylum in Serbia in the first three months of 2014, and most of them - 947 - were Syrians.

This data was revealed on Tuesday by Executive Director of the Serbian Asylum Seeker Relief Center Radoš Đurović.

BELGRADE - A total of 2,055 people requested asylum in Serbia in the first three months of 2014, and most of them - 947 - were Syrians, the executive director of the Serbian Asylum Seeker Relief Centre Rados Djurovic said on Tuesday.

As of end-December 2013 the population of Bulgaria was 7,245,677 persons representing 1.5% of the EU population, ranking the country at the 16th place immediately after Austria.

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming at the press briefing, on 15 April 2014, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The quoted text may be attributed to Fleming.