Six migrants died, while three other and their driver were injured in a car crash near Bulgaria's Black Sea city of Burgas, a senior interior ministry official said Friday.

The incident occurred a short time before midnight Thursday as police tried to stop a van with Romanian registration plates carrying nine migrants who had entered the country illegally, border police chief Anton Zlatanov told reporters.

He explained that the driver repeatedly refused to stop at the signals given and, eventually, attempted to evade spike strips set by the police, lost control over the car and crashed leading to six fatalities.

The driver, a Romanian citizen, and the three surviving migrants received first aid at the scene. Preliminary data suggested that the migrants are from Afghanistan.

Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 6.5 million, is located on a major route for migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Europe.

Only a small number of them plan to stay in the EU’s poorest member, using Bulgaria instead as a transit corridor on their way westward.