Europe's migration crisis
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Hungary declares migration crisis in two southern counties
ReutersHungary's government is declaring a crisis in two southern counties, bordering Serbia, because of the influx of migrants, a government spokesman said on Tuesday in the town of Szeged near the frontier. -
A policeman fixes a registration band at the wrist of a migrant at a train station near the border with Austria in Freilassing, Germany September 15, 2015. A total of 4,537 asylum seekers reached Germany by train on Monday despite the imposition of new controls at the border with Austria, the federal police said on Tuesday. The arrivals brought the number of asylum seekers who have entered Germany by train since the start of the month to 91,823, a police spokeswoman in Potsdam said. REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler
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European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos (L-R), First Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and Luxembourg's Minister of European and Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn hold a news conference after an European Union interior and justice ministers emergency meeting on the migrants situation in Brussels September 14, 2015. REUTERS/Eric Vidal
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A record 156,000 migrants entered EU in August: border agency Frontex
ReutersA record 156,000 migrants entered the European Union in August, the bloc's border agency Frontex said on Tuesday, taking the total for the year to more than 500,000. -
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Syrian refugee count nears 2 million in Turkey, down in Iraq, LebanonThe numbers of Syrian refugees in Iraq and Lebanon fell in August, while the number in Turkey has risen to almost 2 million and asylum applications in Europe have leapt, the U.N. refugee agency said.
The Syrian refugee count in Turkey has jumped by more than 200,000 since June, having risen by just 14,000 in the previous three months, UNHCR spokeswoman Selin Unal said.
From Turkey, tens of thousands of refugees try to reach Europe by attempting the short sea crossing to Greece, though many have drowned on the way.
Unal said Turkish authorities were trying to stop people reaching Europe. Syrians who were found making their way through Turkey were stopped and registered as refugees.
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U.N. voices deep disappointment at lack of EU consensus on migrantsThe United Nations said on Tuesday it was "deeply disappointed" at the failure of European Union ministers to reach a final consensus on a plan to share the relocation of 120,000 refugees.
"Decisive agreement is needed without further delay to address the needs, as is bold action based on solidarity from all member states," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.
A majority of EU interior ministers, meeting in Brussels on Monday, agreed in principle toshare out 120,000 asylum seekers on top of some 40,000 distributed on a voluntary basis so far. But details of the deal, to be formalized on Oct. 8, were vague with several ex-Communist central European states still rejecting mandatory quotas.
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Hungary locks down EU border, taking migrant crisis into its own hands
ReutersHUNGARIAN BORDER (Reuters) - Hungary's right-wing government shut the main land route for migrants into the EU on Tuesday, taking matters into its own hands to halt Europe's influx of refugees. -
Border-free Europe unravels in migrant crisis
ReutersThe two-decade-old era of border-free travel in Europe was unraveling on Monday as countries imposed controls on their frontiers in response to an unprecedented influx of migrants. -
Lessons for dealing with today’s migrant crisis from the last one: http://t.co/wiTqzuSReX http://t.co/VkmObhAfbN
9:04 PM - 10 Sep 2015- Reply
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Germany, Austria seek EU summit next week on refugees
ReutersGermany and Austria want a special European Union summit next week to tackle the refugee crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said on Tuesday. -
Switzerland ready to accept migrant quotas: President Sommaruga
ReutersSwitzerland is ready to accept a migrant quota on the lines proposed by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, providing the EU accepts the plan, Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga said on Tuesday. -
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Germany urges penalties for EU states rejecting refugees
Germany urged the European Union to consider imposing financial penalties on states that refuse to take in their share of asylum seekers, as the influx of refugees showed no sign of abating on Tuesday despite new border controls.
In a veiled threat that drew an angry response from eastern European states that have resisted EU plans to share out refugees, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said these were the same countries that received funding from the bloc.
Facing opposition from ex-Communist states, EU ministers failed on Monday to break a deadlock over sharing responsibility for accepting some of the hundreds of thousands who have sought asylum in Europe.
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Charlie Hebdo stirs new controversy with migrant cartoons
French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is courting controversy again by running cartoons deriding the response of predominantly Christian European countries to a flood of migrants from mainly Muslim war zones such as Syria and Iraq.
The magazine became a symbol of freedom of speech after it was the target of a deadly attack by Islamist militants in January for publishing cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad.
The latest edition has attracted renewed attention -- and criticism on social media.
One drawing plays on the harrowing photo of Aylan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian child whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey after a failed attempt to cross by boat with his family to Greece. The photograph galvanized world attention on the refugee crisis.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoon shows a toddler in shorts and a T-shirt face-down on the shoreline beside an advertising billboard that offers two children's meal menus for the price of one.
"So close to making it..." the caption says.
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Twenty-two migrants drown as boat capsizes in Aegean SeaTwenty-two migrants drowned and 200 more were rescued when a boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the Turkish coast while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos on Tuesday, the Turkish coastguard said.
A total of 211 immigrants were rescued from the boat while divers recovered the bodies of 22 drowned passengers, the statement said.
The boat went down about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) off the resort town of Bodrum, where the drowned body of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi washed up two weeks ago, giving rise to a tragic image that shocked people around the world.
Television footage showed a crowded Turkish coastguard ship carrying rescued people to the shore. No one was immediately available for comment at the coastguard.
The news agency Dogan said the group had been traveling to Kos in a 20-metre (66-foot) wooden boat. Turkey is currently host to more than 2 million refugees, mostly from the conflict in Syria, and tens of thousands have set off from its coast for Greece and eventually northern Europe.
On Sunday, 34 people including 15 babies and children died when another wooden boat capsized off the Greek island of Farmakonisi.
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Hungary locks down EU border, taking migrant crisis into its own hands
ReutersHUNGARIAN BORDER (Reuters) - Hungary's right-wing government shut the main land route for migrants into the EU on Tuesday, taking matters into its own hands to halt Europe's influx of refugees. -
Syrians gamble with life to get to Europe
ReutersImages of a father struggling to hold his baby above the waves and of drowned Syrians washed ashore have not deterred Racha Sattout from gambling her life to seek sanctuary in Germany after fleeing a Syria ripped apart by war. -
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews guest columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The European Union sometimes moves forward in response to crises. When an inadequacy in the EU’s modus operandi is exposed – normally a failure of the states that belong to it to act in the common interest – the solution tends to involve the partial pooling of sovereignty.
Will the EU’s two latest crises – the influx of migrants and refugees and the travails of the single currency – follow the same pattern? Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, is one advocate of greater integration as a response. But there is also lots of resistance, because Europe’s people are suffering from integration malaise and are unwilling to show unlimited solidarity towards their neighbours.
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As refugee crisis grows, U.N. agency faces questions
ReutersIt took a photograph of a drowned toddler washed up on a Turkish beach to achieve what a United Nations agency with 9,300 staff and a budget of $4 billion could not: soften European views on the refugee crisis. -
Hungarian riot police ready water cannon against protesting migrants
ReutersHungarian riot police, backed by water cannon and armored vehicles, moved into position at a border crossing on Wednesday where migrants were demanding they be allowed to cross from Serbia, a U.N. official at the scene told Reuters. -
Britain offers warship to tackle people smugglers in Mediterranean
ReutersA British warship could be used to target people traffickers in the Mediterranean as part of European Union efforts to tackle a growing migrant crisis, the Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. -
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Iraqi found guilty of crossing Hungarian fence, expelled for one year
A Hungarian court found an Iraqi man guilty on Wednesday of illegally crossing a border fence running the length of Hungary's border with Serbia and ordered him to be expelled, in the first ruling under a new crackdown on migrants.
"This is a message to others, to potential culprits, that they should not commit this crime," judge Krisztian Kemenes told the court. The man, identified in court as Swadi Talib, was excluded from Hungary for one year. He had crossed the fence on Tuesday, the first day of the crackdown.
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Refugee journey: Feeling like a beggar on streets of Athens
ReutersSitting on the street outside a travel agency in the Greek capital, Abeer and her two daughters wait while her husband arranges a money transfer from relatives so they can continue their journey. -
Six-year-old Yasmine is crying on the beach. The men who have just brought her family across the narrow sea between Bodrum in Turkey and this Greek tourist island threw away the dress her grandmother gave her.It was tossed into the water in a bag as her family crossed by tiny boat, fleeing their home in Deir al-Zor in war-torn Syria for what they hope will be a new, safer life in Europe.
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Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra is following a group of families fleeing the war in Syria and seeking a new life in Europe.Her first report is from Lesbos in Greece, where she caught up with refugees she had earlier met in Bodrum, on the coast of Turkey. They had been brought by people smugglers across the narrow strip of water between the two countries.
Ihab, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant from Deir Al Zour, and his family gesture after arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos, September 11, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Ihab, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant from Deir Al Zour, war-torn Syria, throws the life vest of his daughter at the beach after arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos September 11, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Ihab, a 30-year-old Syrian migrant from Deir Al Zour, reacts as he talks on the phone with his mother, who has been a refugee in Germany for two months, at the beach after arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos September 11, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Ihab, a 30-year-old migrant from Deir Al Zour in war-torn Syria, smiles as he carries his daughter Hanine, 3, as they walk after arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos, September 11, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Yasmine, a 6-year-old migrant from Deir Al Zour in war-torn Syria, cries at the beach after arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos September 11, 2015. They are heading for Germany, which is one of the reasons for Yasmine's tears. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Yasmine, 6, a migrant from Deir Al Zour in war-torn Syria, watches from a ship as she waits to go to Athens, on the Greek island of Lesbos September 11, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Yasmine (3rd R), 6, a migrant from Deir Al Zour, war-torn Syria, sits with her parents on the metro in Athens, Greece September 12, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Ihab, a 30-year old Syrian migrant from Deir Al Zour, war-torn Syria, takes a selfie with his wife Abeer after disembarking from a passenger ship in Athens, Greece September 12, 2015. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra1 of 8
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I never thought that one day I would find myself in such a situation. I am ashamed to expose myself in such a way. Everyone is watching. I feel like a beggar."
- Abeer, 26, as she sat outside an Athens travel agency waiting for her husband to arrange a money transfer from relatives so that they can continue their journey from Syria. -
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Migrants seek new ways to EU after Hungary shuts main route
ReutersMigrants walked through cornfields into the European Union through Serbia's western border with Croatia on Wednesday, opening a new front in the continent’s migration crisis after Hungary shut the main overland route. -
Refugee journey: 'Happy memories' all thrown overboard
Reuters UKSix-year-old Yasmine is crying on the beach. The men who have just brought her family across the narrow sea between Bodrum in Turkey and this Greek tourist island threw away the dress her grandmother gave her. -
A growing black market for fake documents has become the last resort for Syrian refugees: http://t.co/2cbIOUTmpM http://t.co/dMwA1YqwcW
3:11 PM - 16 Sep 2015Delete- Reply
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Police and migrants in stand-off near Turkey's Greek border
ReutersHundreds of mostly Syrian migrants spent the night out in the open near Turkey's border with Greece after Turkish police halted their attempt to reach the frontier and cross into the European Union. -
Germany could spend 25 billion euros on refugee intake, say analysts http://t.co/HIbBNxns9o4:23 PM - 16 Sep 2015
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Iran aims to examine downed plane's black boxes, no plan yet to send them abroad
DUBAI Iran is trying to analyze the black boxes of a Ukrainian airliner that its military shot down this month, the state IRNA news agency reported on Sunday, denying a report that a decision had been taken to send the plane's recorders to Ukraine.
