migrants

Record number of migrants arrive in Hungary

According to police data, 2,093 migrants were detained Monday, the highest figure so far this year. Over the past week, the daily average was of 1,493 migrants.

The surge comes after nearly 10,000 people, including many women with babies and small children mostly from Syria, rushed across the Macedonian border into Serbia over the weekend.

Another 1,000 arrived in Serbia Tuesday morning and their next stop is most likely to be EU-member Hungary.

About 2,000 migrants rush past police into Macedonia

The tumult started when police decided to allow a small group of migrants with young children to cross the frontier and crowds in the back squeezed them toward the shielded police wall. Many women, at least one pregnant, and children fell to the ground apparently fainting after squeezing past the cordon.

Then, thousands of others used the moment to run across a field not protected by barbed wire to enter Macedonia. Police fired stun grenades, but didn't manage to stop the rush.

1 migrant drowns, 9 rescued off Turkish coast

The Anadolu Agency say the fiberglass boat capsized early on Friday off the Bodrum peninsula, a popular visitor destination. The migrants were trying to reach the island of Kos.

Separately, the agency said 11 migrants were rescued by crew members and tourists aboard a yacht off the nearby coast of Datca, after their rubber boat sank on its way to Kos.

The route between Bodrum and Kos is one of the shortest to the Greek islands. Thousands of migrants are attempting the perilous sea crossing despite the risks.

Serbian leader criticizes Hungary for migrant border fence

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic spoke as he talked to migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia who were camping Wednesday in a Belgrade park. He said Serbia has no plans to build fences on its border even though it is being overwhelmed by the flood of migrants.

Vucic says "we won't build those wires, those barbed wires. It only takes for someone to switch the electricity through those wires and to finish the job."

Italy: At least 40 migrants dead at sea, 320 others rescued

The navy said because the rescue was still ongoing it couldn't give exact numbers of dead.

"They are still counting the victims," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters after giving the figure of 320 rescued.

RaiNews24 TV, reporting from the navy rescue coordination center in Rome, said the dead migrants were found in the hold of an overcrowded smugglers' boat.

VIDEO: Coast Guard rescues migrants from boat

The 55 women, 26 minors and 300 men were all safely transferred onto the Coast Guard ship Fiorillo on Thursday.

According to the Coast Guard, the wooden vessel sank shortly after all the migrants were rescued.

Irish navy: Migrant boat carrying 100s capsizes off Libya

Irish naval vessel Le Niamh was one of several ships requested by the Italian coast guard to speed to the rescue of the overturned boat shortly before noon, Irish Capt. Donal Gallagher told The Associated Press by phone.

Gallagher said that according to preliminary reports some 150 migrants were spotted in the water after the smugglers' boat, which was estimated to have been carrying 600 migrants, overturned. "An Italian (military) helicopter has dropped additional life rafts" into the sea, Gallagher said.

Soldiers in Hungary begin building fence to stop migrants

On the outskirts of the southern village of Asotthalom, soldiers on Monday were using heavy machinery to drive metal rods into the ground, the first steps in the construction of the nearly 4-meter (13-foot) high fence which the government wants to finish by Aug. 31.

More than 100,000 migrants have reached Hungary on routes across the Balkans so far in 2015. 

VIDEO: Italian Coast Guard rescues migrants off Libya

The group rescued on Tuesday - comprising of 62 women and 24 minors - were taken to the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to the Coast Guard

Tens of thousands of migrants have been rescued trying to make the crossing from Libya to Europe since the beginning of this year.