SOFIA, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- An illegal migrant has died of exhaustion in Bulgaria near the country's border with Greece, the Interior Ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.

A border patrol found five foreigners without identity documents on Tuesday at noon near the village of Siva Reka, the ministry said.

Three of the people said they were citizens of Afghanistan, and the other two presented themselves as Pakistanis, the ministry said.

The illegal migrants also said that they abandoned another Pakistani in a helpless condition in the forest next to the village, it said.

Shortly thereafter, border police discovered the foreigner, "obviously heavily exhausted," and sent him into a hospital. However, he died on Tuesday evening, the ministry added.

Bulgaria is located on a migrant route to Central and Western Europe. According to official data, the Ministry of Interior arrested 2,989 illegal immigrants in 2017.