A Syrian asylum seeker has died at the Busmantsi centre near Sofia.

Hasun Albaadzh had come to Bulgaria seeking to immigrate in 2006. He had been kept at Busmantsi Detention Center near Sofia after his application was rejected in November 2006.

Albaadzh died on October 6 after asking for medical assistance, according to fellow detainees. Bulgarian human rights groups are now demanding an investigation. Civil 21, one of those human rights groups, said Albaadzhs' three-year detention was a violation of Bulgaria's laws. Bulgarian officials say Albaadzh was being detained prior to deportation.

The 200 or so migrants currently held at Busmantsi staged a strike last week, claiming under-nourishment and infrequent visits.

Bulgarian officials claim that all long-held detainees, except two, had been released this past summer. Last year the US Department of State said "detention in Bulgaria serves to circumvent proper asylum procedure by allowing for the treatment of asylum seekers as ‘illegal immigrants facing deportation’ while their applications are considered. This practice should raise some flags of alarm."

Iliana Savova, director of the refugee and migrant programme at the human rights NGO Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, and a long-time campaigner against the detention system at Busmantsi, says that medical supervision and care at the centre are lacking. "Alongside protracted periods of detention, malnutrition and lack of psychological support, one of the most recurrent problems reported by detainees is extremely poor levels of medical care, lack of medicines and treatment," she says.  

Savova also noted that Busmantsi lacks a permanent medical staff. Instead, doctors and nurses visit for a month on a rotation system; this makes the monitoring and treatment of medical conditions of detainees difficult.

Earlier this year Nigerian university lecturer Jonson Ibitui died of a heart attack shortly after being released from Busmantsi. According to Civil 21, the heart attack was "a direct consequence of the one year of meaningless stay in the detention centre".