Our phones were seized without any legal grounds or explanation of our rights, while officers mocked us, calling us “traffickers.” We were then violently separated. Eliza was locked in a police car with two officers and a police dog, driven recklessly at high speed, and taunted with threats that she was being taken to Turkey. Throughout the ride, the officers were repeatedly calling us “traffickers” and “Taliban,” while making xenophobic remarks.

At the station, we were kept separated, not knowing if the other was also in the station. Eliza was forced to spend the night sitting on a chair by the toilets, deprived of food, rest, or any humane treatment, while armed officers passing by mocked her. Her repeated requests to speak with a lawyer were ridiculed, and she was eventually subjected to a strip search while on her period. Kai was detained in degrading conditions and denied access to legal counsel. Border guards sexually harassed her, and she went the entire detention without being able to eat. She was kept awake, verbally abused and subjected to a strip search. Her physical condition rapidly deteriorated, leading to uncontrollable trembling for hours on end.

In the following days, we were interrogated without the right to lawyers of our choosing, pressured to sign documents we could not understand, and repeatedly threatened with long prison sentences if we did not “confess” to crimes we had not committed. The translator provided was inadequate and openly hostile: he paraphrased or omitted critical details and even shouted at us when we insisted on accurate translations.

Meanwhile, the prosecution fabricated accusations against us, including false claims of money transfers and alleged links to Bulgarian organisations to which we have never belonged nor interacted with, in order to justify the charges. It is telling that some of this so-called “evidence” has since been dropped. 

We were transferred multiple times between Rezovo, Tsarevo, and finally the Burgas detention centre, handcuffed, without seatbelts, and always in vehicles driven dangerously. Throughout detention, we were denied proper food, rest, contact with our embassies, or access to adequate legal support. We were imprisoned in unsanitary cells infested with cockroaches and bedbugs, deprived of basic hygiene items such as toilet paper or toothbrushes, subjected to repeated humiliating strip searches, constantly surveilled by male guards, and even prevented from receiving letters from our families. 

Kai, who has Coeliacs, was consistently served food contaminated with gluten, and her health deteriorated throughout the detention despite prison staff repeatedly being made aware of their condition, including by the British embassy. Both were refused access to their embassy, lawyer, and families for a period of five days.