International Organisation for Migration

At a Portuguese embassy briefing for Syrian and Iraqi refugees flying out the next morning from Athens, a young man wants to know how many cigarette cartons he can pack, while an elderly woman asks who will care for her once she lands.

Hundreds of refugees that set sail from the coasts of North Africa's Libya are feared dead after boats carrying them capsized. 

While the United Nations' refugee agency put the death toll at around 110 people, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said 239 migrants were killed in two shipwrecks. 

State Minister Alekos Fambouraris has called for an emergency meeting at Maximos Mansion next week to discuss the migration crisis on the eastern Aegean island of Chios.

The meeting, set to take place on Monday, will be attended by Chios Mayor Manolis Vournous, regional governor for the Northern Aegean Christiana Kalogirou and local MPs.

The migrant flow from Turkey to Greece's Aegean islands has fallen sharply since March, when Ankara's deal with the EU to curb migration to Europe went into effect, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said.

An estimated 178,882 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by sea in 2016, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) announced on Tuesday.

"Latest confirmed fatalities stand at 737," IOM said in a statement

Almost 90% of all migrants who have entered Europe by sea this year have arrived in Greece, the latest estimates of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) showed on Friday.

As of April 6, arrivals in Greece by sea for 2016 totalled 152,461, according to IOM. Another 914 migrants and refugees have arrived by land.

Scuffles have broken out between refugees and police on Tuesday at Idomeni camp close to Greece's border with Macedonia, according to greekreporter.com.

The refugees, stuck at Idomeni for more than a month now and demanding reopening of the border by the Macedonian authorities, started throwing rocks at Greek police officers who tried to clear the rail tracks from the refugees.

The United Nations said March 17 that it was concerned that many of the 35,000 people recently displaced by fighting in Iraq's Anbar province were still very close to the front lines.

Thousands of civilians have been fleeing Hit, 145 kilometers west of Baghdad, as security forces close in on fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) hunkered down in the city.

Arrivals of migrants and refugees to Italy and Greece across the Mediterranean routes have exceeded 150,000 between January 1 and March 10, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said.

Arrivals to the Greek islands continue with a daily average of some 2,000, the IOM said in its latest update on migrant inflow to Europe on Friday.

Foreign and Interior Ministers of Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia met in Vienna on Wednesday to coordinate moves on reducing the flow of the migrants along the so-called Balkan route.