No Passport, on the Stop List, and Yet in Sofia: Who Let Iva Mihailova Across the Border?

Charged over a fatal traffic accident, stripped of both passports, banned from leaving Kochani, and with her name on the Interior Ministry's stop list. None of it was enough. Twenty-three-year-old Iva Mihailova, who holds Macedonian and Bulgarian citizenship, is now in Sofia, and Macedonian institutions are so far responding with what they do best - press releases.

What the system says, and what she says

The Interior Ministry checked its border control system and found no recorded exit from the country for her. The Bulgarian border police also checked, through the Joint Contact Centre - and there's no recorded legal entry into Bulgaria either. According to both countries, then, Mihailova officially never crossed the border.

She claims the opposite. She told Bulgarian media that her health had deteriorated, that she crossed the border together with her lawyer, that she showed her Macedonian ID card, and that they returned to Bulgaria "without any problems". Her Bulgarian lawyer, Nikolay Dimitrov, says the Macedonian ID was shown at the Macedonian checkpoint and the Bulgarian documents at the Bulgarian one. Which crossing - he won't say, so as not to cause trouble for the people who, according to him, helped them. He himself admits this may breach the measures imposed by the Macedonian court.

High-ranking sources in the Interior Ministry tell the story differently. According to them, Dimitrov left Macedonian territory in a car with one other man sitting next to him, and Mihailova was not in any of the seats. Those sources call his claims that he had help from Macedonian police officers and border guards lies and propaganda. Fine. But if she wasn't sitting in the car, where was she - and who was supposed to notice?

Measures that existed only on paper

The prosecution is quick to explain that it did its part. As far back as 9 October 2025, at a public prosecutor's request, both her travel documents - Macedonian and Bulgarian - were confiscated. She was banned from crossing the border with her ID card, banned from leaving Kochani, and required to report to an official. The risk of flight, prosecutors say, was one of the key reasons they repeatedly opposed her request to have her passport returned.

So the flight risk was known, written down and repeated for months. The flight happened anyway. Who was checking that she respected the ban on leaving Kochani? Who was tracking whether she reported to the official? A measure nobody enforces isn't a measure, it's a form.

The timing adds another uncomfortable layer. The escape happened precisely while arrangements were being made through diplomatic channels for Bulgarian doctors to come to Macedonia and assess her health. Her defence lawyer in Kochani, Naser Raufi, says he too was caught off guard - he had been preparing a new request to the court for treatment in Bulgaria. Now, he says, the trial will have to continue in her absence.

This is not the first escape in the family. Her father, Simeon Mihailov, left the country in a similar way and avoided a prison sentence after being convicted of serious crimes, including attempted murder.

Sofia welcomed her, Skopje is looking for someone to blame

In Bulgaria, Mihailova's departure was greeted with enthusiasm by the media and politicians. President Iliana Iotova said she hadn't known about her arrival but was ready to meet her personally as soon as her health allows. Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev promised she would be questioned to establish whether, when, where and how she crossed the border - and that she would get protection if she needs it. Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova-Chamova insists her ministry wasn't involved, but didn't miss the chance to call it a "humanitarian case" that hadn't received an adequate response in Macedonia, leading to "desperate actions".

So the Bulgarian minister wants to establish how a person on the Macedonian stop list ended up in Bulgaria. The Macedonian Interior Ministry is looking for exactly the same answer. If both police forces are genuinely looking, it shouldn't be out of reach - the lawyer who took her is known by his full name and is giving TV interviews.

At home, the opposition is demanding resignations. SDSM has called on Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski to go, arguing that fugitives from justice are now passing freely through border crossings. The Democratic Union wants the institutions to establish how Mihailova left the country so easily, and points out that the escape happened just as an assessment by Bulgarian doctors had been agreed - an assessment that could have answered whether her condition was truly life-threatening.

The question of her health will now be answered by doctors at Sofia's Pirogov hospital. The question of the border can be answered by nobody but Macedonian institutions. If they can't say how a defendant with confiscated passports disappeared, then the stop list is just a list of names the state politely asks not to leave.