Helping refugees fit in in Bulgaria, helping them through the process to apply for refugee status, and providing them with psychological support. These are the intentions with which in early February a project was promoted by Caritas Sofia, in partnership with the Bulgarian Red Cross, the women refugees’ association and “Nadya” Foundation, for assisting refugees in Bulgaria. “We want to help the refugees get their bearings and fit in, in Bulgaria”, the project coordinator, Ivan Cheresharov of Caritas Sofia, explains to SIR. The project staff will make migrants aware of their rights and will take them to the Bulgarian authorities, helping them with the language as well. A course of Bulgarian language with a special refugee handbook in Arab and Persian has been planned as well. “Migrants – Cheresharov goes on – will receive legal assistance from the project experts, which will help them a lot through the process to apply for refugee status”. The project covers four hotspots in Bulgaria: two in Sofia, one in Harmanli and one in Banja. Since the start of the year, about two thousand people, according to the National Refuge Agency, have applied for asylum in the country. “However, the figures show that most of the migrants that register at the border then do not show up again – Cheresharov notices –, which means they illegally walk on to other European countries”.