Truck queue stretches 30 kilometers at Türkiye-Bulgaria border

EDİRNE

A 30-kilometer queue of trucks has backed up at the Hamzabeyli Border Gate in northwestern Türkiye, leaving drivers carrying Turkish exports to Europe stuck for hours due to slow processing on the Bulgarian side.

Truck drivers said they had been stuck in the queue for up to two days, with limited access to food and sanitation facilities.

“We have been here since yesterday. We are currently around the 20th kilometer of the queue and have been stuck on the road for two days,” driver Sait Özkan told the Demirören News Agency on Oct. 17, adding that neither side was processing vehicles fast enough.

“We do not know how much longer we will have to wait. It could be another two or three days,” he said.

Özkan also raised concerns about irregular migrants allegedly entering parked trucks at night, warning that drivers could face penalties if their vehicle seals or tarpaulins were damaged.

Another driver, Ercan Ulus, said he had spent around 10 hours in the queue, which had moved from the 26th to the 23rd kilometer.

“The Bulgarian side is also operating very slowly. Only one person is handling passport checks,” Ulus said, calling for faster processing at the border.

Türkiye and Bulgaria are also discussing plans to open a new border crossing north of the existing Kapıkule facility to ease congestion and increase cross-border traffic capacity.

The proposed crossing, tentatively named “Kapıkule / Kapitan Andreevo – North,” is intended to provide an alternative to Kapıkule, one of the region’s busiest land border crossings and a major trade corridor connecting Asia and Europe.