UNICEF Bulgaria is launching a national campaign to find foster families for refugee children who have arrived in Bulgaria alone, the organisation said.
Unaccompanied children are those who come without a parent or any other adult responsible for them. In 2025, 573 such children asked for protection in Bulgaria.
Last year Bulgaria handled 174 cases of unaccompanied foreign children, according to the Social Assistance Agency. Child protection departments set protection measures for them. Of these children, 155 got support in residential care: family-type accommodation centres, crisis centres and transitional housing. Another 15 were placed with relatives, and four live with foster families.
The campaign is part of the project "Creating alternative social services for unaccompanied refugee children in Bulgaria", the first of its kind in Bulgaria. The State Agency for Refugees, which answers to the Council of Ministers, runs the project, and the EU co-funds it. The partners are UNICEF Bulgaria, the International Organization for Migration and the municipalities of Burgas, Ivaylovgrad, Malko Tarnovo and Tundzha. The Social Assistance Agency also backs the project. Together with the municipalities, it is responsible for developing and promoting foster care in Bulgaria.
The organisers want more people to become foster parents, so that children who need protection can get safe, specialist care in a family. Some of the children are refugees and migrants who have lived through loss, separation, violence, conflict or forced displacement. The partners also want to show that behind every figure in the statistics is a real child.
UNICEF says millions of children around the world leave their homes because of conflict, violence, poverty and crises, and those who travel alone are the most vulnerable. They often need extra support because of the trauma they carry, their language and culture, and the need to adapt to a new place. The organisation says every child, wherever they come from, has the right to care, protection and a life in a family.
Mio Nemoto, UNICEF's representative in Bulgaria, said that besides protection, these children need stability and human support, and a foster family gives them a chance not to face the future alone. "No child should go through the hardships of migration alone," she said.
Dimitar Ivanov, head of the State Agency for Refugees, said it is important for the agency to give these children hope and a future. He said results will come if the care now given in the agency's Safe Zones is built on with services in family-type centres. That will happen when a lasting model of social support is set up, "not just within one project and not piecemeal". Ivanov said refugee children who have already built a life in Bulgaria, and the first foster families, though far fewer than hoped, give reason for confidence.
In July, UNICEF Bulgaria began the campaign "There Is No Such Thing as Someone Else's Child". It backs programmes against violence towards children, for inclusive education, early intervention and care for the youngest. It also helps children in humanitarian crisis zones and areas hit by natural disasters around the world.