Sofia Municipality Fined over Bulgarian Woman Bitten by Stray Dogs

The Sofia Administrative Court ruled on Thursday that Sofia Municipality should pay BGN 2 161 in compensation to a citizen attacked by stray dogs.

28-y-old Ogniana Madzharova had sued the municipality on two counts for dog bites suffered to her knees and calves.

The incident had occurred last summer in Sofia city center. The woman was walking home in the dark close to Zaimov park after an evening spent with colleagues.

The barking dogs had jumped on and attacked her. She could not run away, as one of them sank its teeth into her leg.

"I felt a severe pain. I started shouting, but it bit me a second time on my calf," said Madzharova.

Her colleagues had responded to her cries for help, and had taken her to Pirogov hospital, where the woman had received stitches and treatment for gashes and bleeding.

"The wounds healed after two weeks, but I was too afraid to go out of my home" said Madzharova.

Sofia Administrative Court accepted the defense argument that it was inaction on the part of Sofia Municipality that had allowed this situation to occur. The same dogs had been the subject of 13 other complaints by members of the public.

"It is the responsibility of municipalities to take away stray dogs, to disinfect them and, if necessary, to castrate them and then let them go again. With aggressive dogs, a special intervention is needed,” stated attorney Sofia Razboinikova.

“If that cannot be done, it is the obligation of the appropriate services to destroy them", she added.