Bulgarian police had on Friday discovered an abandoned truck containing the bodies of 18 migrants, who appeared to have suffocated to death inside a secret compartment under a load of lumber.
According to the interior Ministry from initial information, the truck was carrying about 40 migrants and the survivors were taken to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment.Bulgarian Health Minister, Assen Medzhidiev said most of the survivors were in very bad condition.
“They have suffered from lack of oxygen, their clothes are wet, they are freezing, and obviously haven’t eaten for days,” Medzhidiev said.The truck was found abandoned along a highway near the capital, Sofia. 
The driver was not there, but police discovered the passengers in a secret compartment below the lumber the vehicle also was carrying.Authorities did not immediately give the nationalities of the migrants, but they were reported to have been Afghanistans.
Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 7 million, is located on a major route for migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Europe. Only a small number of them plan to stay in the European Union’s poorest member, using Bulgaria instead as a transit corridor on their way west.
To prevent people from entering the country illegally, Bulgaria’s government erected a barbed-wire fence along its 259-kilometer border with Turkey. But foreigners fleeing poverty or conflict in their home countries manage to enter with the help of local people smugglers.While the deaths of Europe-bound refugees and asylum-seekers at sea are more common, the grim discovery in Bulgaria is not the first time groups of migrants have been found dead in abandoned vehicles.
