Human migration

The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe fell by more than one-third last month due to poor weather and a Turkish crackdown on traffickers, the U.N. said Dec. 1.

CAUTION Macedonian army on standby as migrants protest

Dozens of economic migrants climbed a wire fence on Tuesday on the Greece-Macedonian border asking to be allowed to enter Macedonia, RTS is reporting.

Also today, Macedonian special forces managed to round up a sizeable group that had managed to circumvent the fence and enter the country.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is due to visit Bulgaria on December 3, government sources cited by website Dnevnik.bg have said.

Cameron is to arrive on Thursday afternoon and visit the Bulgaria-Turkey border, according to the sources, but more details are yet to be disclosed.

Some 1,300 migrants were detained off the coast of northwestern Çanakkale province as they attempted to reach the nearby Greek island of Lesbos on Nov. 29, Turkish coast guard officials have said.

Russia said on Nov. 27 it would suspend its visa-free regime for Turkish nationals from Jan. 1 as it retaliates against Ankara for the downing of a Russian warplane.

A group of 60 businessmen attending a business fair in Krasnodar were detained by Russian authorities, as Hurriyet newspaper reports.,

Russian authorities detained them because they attended the business fair on tourist visas.

The number of unaccompanied refugee children passing through Greece has been a matter of concern. METAction (METAdrasi) – one of the key non-governmental organisations active in caring for unaccompanied refugee children in Greece – is jump-starting a foster care programme to cope with the increased demands raised by the refugee crisis.

UK Ambassador to Bulgaria Emma Hopkins said on Tuesday the EU needs to jointly manage common borders and apply stricter control as part of a "new Schengen stage".

In an interview with private bTV station, Hopkins opined Europe was facing an unprecedented threat requiring a more efficient control of the bloc's external borders.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Friday urged the countries lying along the so-called Balkans route used by migrants and refugee to reach western Europe to to put in place additional reception capacity at the points of entry and to allow for decent and effective accommodation.

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia's minister for refugees, on Thursday said Serbia would no longer allow in "economic" migrants after Slovenia and Croatia announced they had barred such migrants from their countries.