Watch: Vigilante Border Patrol in Europe

Europe’s migrant crisis has given rise to an American institution of citizen action. In Bulgaria, an increase of concerned citizens has taken it upon themselves to patrol their nation’s border. The citizens border patrol has labeled themselves as volunteers and not as a militia like their American counterparts, and their efforts also seem to be more successful in the deterrence of illegal migration across the Bulgarian border. Their methodology and success have been recognized and awarded by the Bulgaria government. SOFREP has not investigated the politics of this organization, only the actions recognized by the Bulgarian government.

Bulgaria’s border police have given an award to a voluntary border patrol which detained 23 refugees near the country’s border with Turkey, border police chief Antonio Angelov said on Thursday.

The border police chief, however, told the volunteers, who are part of the Nationalist Organisation for the Protection of Bulgarian Citizens, to inform the police next time they go on patrol in the forests near the border so that the authorities can react accordingly quickly if they spot a group of migrants again.

“I want to encourage them, because they have reacted very appropriately. The group [of migrants] was very calm, but it is not always like that,” Angelov told Bulgarian Nova TV.

“This [volunteer patrolling] is very risky. It is not a child’s game,” he said.

According to the Organisation for the Protection of Bulgarian Citizens’ website, on April 3, 11 members of the group went on “a walk in the forest” with a team from the TV program ‘No Man’s Land’.