Sun, Nov 22 2009

Bulgarians living in Gaza Strip have not requested evacuation

Sat, Jan 03 2009 18:37 CET bySvetlana Guineva 262 Views

No Bulgarian citizens have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip as a result of the increasing tension between Hamas and Israel, private broadcaster bTV reported on January 2 2009.
 
During a phone interview, Siika Sharafi, a Bulgarian citizen who has lived in the region for the past 22 years, said that there were 46 Bulgarians in the Gaza Strip. She is there with her husband Kemal Sharafi and their eldest son. Their other two sons and a daughter are in Plovdiv with their grandmother.

Siika Sharafi said that, according to diplomatic regulations, Bulgaria could only evacuate Bulgarian citizens, and not other family members without Bulgarian identification documents. She said that she could not leave the rest of her family in Gaza and depart for Bulgaria.

When asked how they celebrated the New Year's Eve, Mrs Sharafi explained that they chose to stay in the basement and because of power blackout; they used the car batteries to feed the television set. As she spoke, an explosive-like noise was heard in the background; Mrs Sharafi said that a land offensive was being prepared and she could see Israeli tanks flanking not far from her house.

bTV quoted Dimitar Tsanchev, Bulgarian ambassador to Israel, as saying that the Bulgarian embassy in Tel Aviv maintained close contact with Bulgarians living in Gaza, but at the time of the broadcast, no one had requested evacuation.

Write comment

Name:Comment:

Generate new code
Send your comment
Bulgaria donates 100 000 euro to Gaza Strip hospitals

The financial assistance has been provided so that hospitals in Palestinian areas can purchase new medical equipment and medical supplies, the Ma'an news agency has reported.

More in this category

Mixed reactions to Van Rompuy, Ashton taking EU top jobs

Welcomed by the UK government, France and Germany, as well as the US, the naming of Belgium’s Herman van Rompuy as European Council President and Catherine Ashton as foreign policy chief has caused misgivings in some circles, including Turkey which believes that Van Rompuy will oppose Turkish membership of the bloc.

European Council set to make a meal of it

The dinner meeting of EU leaders to decide on the European Council President and the bloc’s new foreign minister and head of secretariat could take a few hours or all night, says host Fredrik Reinfeldt, Sweden’s prime minister.

Is the EU ready to face another Russian gas crisis?

Russia and the European Union have agreed on an early warning system if another natural gas cutoff looms. Some say that Bulgaria, among other countries hard-hit by the January 2009 crisis, is now better prepared. Not everyone is convinced.

Bulgarian cinema a hit at Bangkok festival

Five Bulgarian films screened at the World Film Festival in Bangkok.

Pieces of the European Commission jigsaw puzzle

A complicated game, played partly in the dark, and with elements of everything from poker to tug ‘o war – that’s the way Europe’s leaders will come up with its new European Council President, foreign minister and European Commission.

© 2000-2009, Sofia Echo Media Ltd.

Web Design by RIZN

Sofia Echo Media is part of the Economedia Group.
The news and information content on this website is provided by our editorial team and is copyrighted. Any unauthorised reproduction or use of it is strictly forbidden. Reproduction of this website's content is permitted only with prior written permission from the Editor-in-Chief, should be propertly acredited and provide an active link back to our site. Comments posted by the website's visitors are independent of the editorial materials and do not represent the views of sofiaecho.com. Sofia Echo Media cannot be held responsible for the statements contained in visitor comments. The percentаge change in the shares' prices are based on the price of the last transaction of the current session compared to the price of the last transaction of the previous session. Bulgarian Stock Exchange data is not real-time, but updated every 15 minutes, and should not be used as a basis for decisions about buying or selling stock options.