Turkey Destinations: The Latest: Austria expects record number of asylum-seekers

Updated 4:48 am, Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Photo: Manolis Lagoutaris, AP

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A man holds a girl after their arrival on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the Skala Sikaminias village on the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. More than 770,000 people have arrived in the EU by sea so far this year overwhelming border authorities and receptions centers. (Manolis Lagoutaris/InTime News via AP) GREECE OUT

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An Afghan woman drinks a milk as she holds her baby at Victoria square, where hundreds migrants and refugees stay temporarily before trying to continue their trip to more prosperous northern European countries, in Athens, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. More than 770,000 people have arrived in the EU by sea so far this year overwhelming border authorities and receptions centers.

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A boat carrying migrants and refugees arrives at a beach on the northern shore of Lesbos, Greece, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. Well over half a million people have reached the Greek islands so far this year, a record number of arrivals, and the journey has proved fatal for hundreds.

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An Afghan woman holds a baby as other migrants sit on a bench with a local resident who reads a newspaper at Victoria square, where hundreds migrants and refugees stay temporarily before trying to continue their trip to more prosperous northern European countries, in Athens, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. More than 770,000 people have arrived in the EU by sea so far this year overwhelming border authorities and receptions centers.

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Slovenian soldiers erect a razor-wired fence on the Croatian border in Gibina, Slovenia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia has started erecting a barbed-wire fence on the border with Croatia to prevent uncontrolled entry of migrants into the already overwhelmed alpine state.

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Police officers patrol outside the Mediterranean Conference Centre where an informal European Union and African leaders summit on migration will be held in Valletta, Malta, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. The meeting of leaders is to map strategy to beef up development project aid in Africa and set up mechanisms to repatriate migrants Europe says don't deserve its protection.

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A police officer is silhouetted as he patrols one of the streets leading up to the Mediterranean Conference Centre where an informal European Union and African leaders summit on migration will be held in Valletta, Malta, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. The meeting of leaders is to map strategy to beef up development project aid in Africa and set up mechanisms to repatriate migrants Europe says don't deserve its protection.

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Migrants waiting to board a train at the train station in Sid, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia to control the influx of migrants, as European and African leaders gathered in Malta to seek long-term solutions to the flow of people making their way across Europe.

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A migrant girl looks through the fence waiting to board a train at the train station in Sid, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia to control the influx of migrants, as European and African leaders gathered in Malta to seek long-term solutions to the flow of people making their way across Europe.

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A migrant holding a baby thought the tent window while waiting for the train at the train station in Sid, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia to control the influx of migrants, as European and African leaders gathered in Malta to seek long-term solutions to the flow of people making their way across Europe.

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A migrant holds a baby through the tent window while waiting for the train at the train station in Sid, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia to control the influx of migrants, as European and African leaders gathered in Malta to seek long-term solutions to the flow of people making their way across Europe.

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A migrant watches through a tent window at the train station in Sid, about 100 km west from Belgrade, Serbia, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015. Slovenia on Wednesday began erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia to control the influx of migrants, as European and African leaders gathered in Malta to seek long-term solutions to the flow of people making their way across Europe.

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The Latest: Austria expects record number of asylum-seekers

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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The latest in the flow of people across Europe in search of a better life. All times local.

2:40 p.m.

Austria's Interior Ministry says it expects a record number of 95,000 asylum applications this year.

The forecast seen Wednesday on the ministry website exceeds ministry estimates of 80,000 for all of 2015 published just a few weeks ago and is more than double the previous high of 39,854 in 2002.

Austria initially was mostly a transit country for those wanting to go to Germany, Sweden and other destinations further. But the new numbers reflect that it now is increasingly a final destination for many refugees seeking safety and a new life.

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2:30 p.m.

A leading politician in the Italian Parliament is decrying as "cynical and inhumane" the erecting of fences between European Union countries to try to keep out migrants.

Laura Boldrini, president of the Chamber of Deputies, also said Wednesday that Europe needs to "implement protection, not defense" measures like the razor-wire fence Italy's neighbor to the east, Slovenia, began putting up along its border with Croatia.

Speaking in Florence, Boldrini expressed dismay eastern European countries, which lived through dictatorship and repression, generating their own waves of refugees, who think they can resolve Europe's current immigration crisis "with barbed wire and walls."

Italy is participating in an EU summit later Wednesday in Malta discussing ways to discourage economic migrants from coming and safer ways to send them back home.

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1:30 p.m.

The European Union wants to issue documents to Africans who are refused asylum to ease their return back to countries they left or traveled through.

The controversial "laissez passer" plan has been criticized by diplomats and non-governmental organizations as being tantamount to Europe telling African countries who they should accept. It will be discussed later Wednesday by European and African leaders at a migration summit in Malta.

In a draft of the summit action plan, obtained by The Associated Press, the leaders pledge to "enhance recognition of the EU laissez passer."

But the African Union's ambassador to the EU, Ajay Bramdeo, has told migration experts the proposed document "is unheard-of in international law."

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12:45 p.m.

Denmark's prime minister says the country will tighten its immigration rules to stem a recent increase in people seeking asylum.

Unlike neighbors Germany and Sweden, Denmark has not seen dramatic numbers of migrants this year, which Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said shows his government's strict immigration policies are working.

However, he told reporters Wednesday that further restrictions are needed after 3,600 people applied for asylum in Denmark in October.

The new measures include reducing benefits for asylum-seekers, shortening residence permits for those allowed to stay and stepping up efforts to deport those who are not.

The center-right leader says "we are not going to have the chaotic situation in Denmark that we have seen in other countries."

Denmark has received about 10,000 asylum-seekers this year while Sweden received a similar number just last week.

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12:35 p.m.

Norwegian news agency NTB says 162 asylum-seekers have been evacuated after a refugee shelter in southern Norway caught on fire.

No one was injured in the blaze, which started just before 2 a.m. Wednesday in Hemsedal. NTB says the kitchen and administrative section of the facility burned to the ground.

Police said it was too early to speculate on the cause.

In neighboring Sweden, more than a dozen refugee shelters have been damaged or destroyed in recent weeks in a wave of suspected arson attacks.

Norway's security service PST has said the sharp rise in asylum-seekers could increase the threat from right-wing extremists.

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11:55 a.m.

Dozens of asylum-seekers in a Czech reception center are on hunger strike to protest their detention and a possible return to their country of origin.

Media say about 44 people, mostly from Iraq, are refusing to eat in the Drahonice facility located west of Prague.

Interior Minister Milan Chovanec told Czech public radio that they started their protest after some 40 other migrants were returned from the center to another European country.

In a statement sent through Mikulas Vymetal, a Protestant priest, to the local CTK news agency, the asylum-seekers complain they've been detained too long and say they would rather die than return home.

There are currently more than 140 people in the center.

Czech authorities say hunger strikes are not rare in the migrant centers.

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11:30 a.m.

Thousands of refugees and other migrants are gathered at Greece's border with Macedonia waiting to continue their journey north toward more prosperous European Union countries, as the surge of people heading to the Greek mainland from the eastern Aegean islands continues following the end of a ferry strike last week.

About 4,000 people were waiting to cross at 6 a.m. Wednesday, with about half in a camp in the Idomeni border area and the rest in 40 buses. Macedonian border police were allowing groups of 50 people to cross roughly every 10-15 minutes.

"My journey from Syria to Greece took 10 days and it was relatively good. I hope it continues this way until I reach Germany," said 22-year-old Yazan Alouf as he waited with friends to cross the border.

Greek police said about 6,200 people had crossed from Tuesday morning until Wednesday morning.

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10:50 a.m.

Slovenia has started erecting a barbed-wire fence on the border with Croatia to prevent uncontrolled entry of migrants into the already overwhelmed Alpine state.

A convoy of army trucks carrying barbed wire arrived early Wednesday in Veliki Obrez, at the Slovenian border with Croatia. Soldiers begun unwinding the wire and stretching it along the Slovenian side of the river Sutla that divides the two countries.

Prime Minister Miro Cerar said a day earlier that his country expects about 30,000 new migrants to reach Slovenian borders.

The government fears that if neighboring Austria restricts their flow further along their route, the people stranded in Slovenia would be too many to handle.

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9:40 a.m.

Turkey's state-run agency says seven children are among the 14 migrants who drowned when their boat sank off the northern Turkish Aegean coast.

Anadolu Agency says Turkish Coast Guard divers are searching the waters for more possible victims.

The boat carrying the migrants sank off the coast of Ayvacik early on Wednesday on its way to the Greek island of Lesbos. The migrants' nationalities were not immediately known.

More than half a million migrants have crossed the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands from Turkey so far this year. Hundreds have died during the crossing.

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9:20 a.m.

Turkey's state-run news agency says 14 migrants drowned when their boat sank off the Turkish northern Aegean coast of Ayvacik.

The Anadolu Agency says 27 other migrants were rescued by Turkish coast guards.

Ayvacik is a main crossing point to the Greek island of Lesbos.

Source: The Latest: Austria expects record number of asylum-seekers

Turkey Destinations

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The Latest: Austria expects record number of asylum-seekers

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