BalkanInsight | 01.03.2017
A once-warm welcome is turning tepid for a Syrian refugee family in Bulgaria.
Mariya Cheresheva
The sign on the green door of a small house rented by Fahim Jaber and Fatima Bataihi in the Bulgarian town of Elin Pelin, located some 30 kilometres east of the capital Sofia, says “Welcome”.
Inside the house, the smell of Arabic coffee and freshly-baked cheese manakish – traditional Syrian hors d’oeuvre – greets guests who braved the rain to visit the middle-aged couple from Aleppo in the early hours of February 25.
Jaber and Batahi were warmly greeted when they first arrived in the town of 7,000 in 2016 along with their youngest son. However, the atmosphere in the town changed mid-February after Mayor Ivailo Simeonov from nationalistic coalition VMRO-New Bulgaria announced that they, as Muslims from Syria, would not be welcome. National elections are set to be held in Bulgaria on March 26 amid an apparent growth in right wing populism on the European continent.