All emergency aid ambulances in Bulgaria are to bear posters in support of Health Minister Petar Moskov, starting from Thursday.

The initiative is organised by medical federation Podkrepa (Support), which expressed on Wednesday its support for Moskov, electronic daily Dnevnik reports.

The Health Minister has been heavily criticised for his proposal that ambulances should not enter Roma quarters, where medics had been assaulted previously, unless their safety is guaranteed.

The ambulances of Sofia emergency medical aid will be equipped with banners bearing the message: “The truth – following years of humiliation affecting the whole of our society”.

The initiators do not accept the accusations originating from members of parliament from certain political parties and non-governmental organisations that Moskov is adding an ethnical dimension to the problem.

Moskov's supporters claim that no arguments can be more convincing than the numbers which show that 175 out of 227 attacks on emergency medical aid teams had taken place in Roma neighbourhoods since the beginning of the year.

The federation highlights that the safety of emergency aid medics should be guaranteed everywhere, where there is a risk of violence against them.

They believe that the problem is of a deep social-political rather than ethnical character.

The federation commented that the initiative for the posters originated from its structures throughout the country.

The president of the federation Margarita Petrova said that they are planning further actions, in case Moskov's initiative does not garner support.