The upcoming World Day for Safety and Health at Work was marked here on Monday by planting 88 trees, the number corresponding to the worker deaths in Bulgaria in 2016.

"It is the only place where I would like to have fewer trees, because every tree is a sign of a person killed in an accident at work," Sofia Mayor Jordanka Fandakova said at the ceremony in the South Park.

Galab Donev, caretaker Minister of Labor and Social Policy, said in turn that in the last ten years, the number of worker deaths in Bulgaria decreased by almost half.

However, the statistics was still sad and showed that the government, employers and trade unions had to work together to improve prevention and ensure that every worker would return home safely at the end of day.

Rumyana Mihaylova, head of the General Labour Inspectorate Executive Agency, added that occupational illnesses took much more lives than the fatal accidents at work.

Each year, as a result of work-related accidents, about 350,000 people die in the world, but meanwhile about two million people die of occupational diseases, Mihaylova said.

The International Labour Organization marks the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on April 28 each year to focus international attention on emerging trends in the field of occupational safety and health and on the magnitude of work-related injuries, diseases and fatalities worldwide.