Human migration

Serbia now letting only "refugees from war" cross border

Serbia and Macedonia have started to limit the passage of "refugees who are not coming from war-affected areas of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan."

At least eight people have drowned, while five others were reported missing when a boat carrying migrants from Turkey sank off the Greek island of Kos, the Greek Coast Guard said on Nov 17.

They were the latest of nearly 3,500 deaths at sea this year among people making desperate bids to flee war and poverty and to reach Europe, according to UN figures.

A ground offensive against the Islamic State (IS) group is indispensable for its destruction, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov said on Monday.

Sofia believes the intervention should be conducted by Gulf states, and not by Western Europe, he told the Bulgarian National Radio after a EU meeting.

The European Union will host Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an in a summit to discuss ways of stopping migrant flows to the bloc, with the union offering 3 billion euros to help Ankara host more than 2 million Syrian migrants in its country. 

The International Monetary Fund urged countries to expand their welcome for the massive flood of refugees in recent years.

Hungary is ready to erect another barrier on its borders to deter a flow of migrants, this time on the border with Romania, a senior official has said.

"We are ready and capable of setting up yet another border fence within a short period of time," Janos Lazar, chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said at a news conference on Thursday, according to portfolio.hu

The EU needs a comprehensive and long-term migration policy in cooperation with African countries in order to tackle the refugee crisis, European Parliament President Martin Schulz has said.

An international summit on migration will take place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in the Maltese capital of Valletta on Wednesday and Thursday.

Back in April, the European Council called for the holding of an international summit to discuss migration issues with African and other key countries concerned.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has asked EU interior ministers to consider ways to set up facilities in western Balkans states to screen some of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who enter Greece and head north, mostly to Germany, Reuters reported.

Asylum Protection Center Executive Director Rados Djurovic has said that "everyone registering in Presevo is ding so as asylum seekers."

Presevo is located near Serbia's southern border with Macedonia,.