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ITALY FINDS 51 MIGRANT BODIES IN BOAT
Italy's
coast guard says 51 bodies have been found in the hull of a migrant
boat that was rescued off Libya's northern coast. Coast guard Lt.
Claudio Bernetti said the Swedish ship Poseidon, part of the European
Union's Mediterranean operation, also rescued 439 surviving migrants
from the ship. The rescue was one of 10 requests for assistance as
Libya-based smugglers take advantage of calm seas to send boats
overloaded with migrants to Europe.
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HUNGARY'S BORDER FENCE STOPS FEW MIGRANTS
Clambering
over the razor-wire border fence or crawling under it, migrants surged
across the Serbian border into Hungary, trying to evade border police
and head to more prosperous European Union nations. By early Wednesday
morning, 1,302 migrants had already been detained at Hungary's southern
border with Serbia, according to Hungary's national police chief. Police
said 2,533 migrants were detained Tuesday, up from 2,093 on Monday,
with the numbers setting records nearly every day.
In
the border town of Roszke, police used tear gas to break up a brief
scuffle involving about 200 migrants who were growing impatient with
registration delays.
The Hungarian border
fence consists of three layers of razor wire along its 174-kilometer
(109-mile) border with Serbia. But it did not stop one group of
migrants, including women and children, from crawling under it, using
blankets, sleeping bags, jackets and a stick to raise the wire.
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GERMAN FAR-RIGHT PROTESTERS BOO MERKEL
Chancellor
Angela Merkel urged Germans to stand up against hatred and vowed zero
tolerance for attacks against refugees, even as over 100 far-right
protesters booed her visit to a shelter for asylum-seekers.
Merkel
traveled to Heidenau, a small town near Germany's eastern border with
the Czech Republic, to express support for refugees following neo-Nazi
riots there over the weekend. Dozens of police were injured when a
far-right mob hurled bottles and fireworks at police, trying to prevent
asylum seekers from moving into a former hardware store south of
Dresden.
"It's shameful and repulsive what we experienced here," Merkel said of the weekend clash.
A
couple of hundred meters (yards) away, far-right protesters jeered and
leaned on car horns. Some held placards denouncing the German
government, while others shouted "Traitors!" and "Lying press!"
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GREECE RESCUES HUNDREDS AT SEA
Greece's
coast guard says it rescued 578 migrants at sea off its eastern Aegean
islands in 15 separate operations near the islands of Lesbos, Chios,
Samos and Kos in the last 24 hours. The figure doesn't include those who
arrive at the islands themselves from the nearby Turkish coast, usually
in inflatable dinghies. Greece has borne the brunt of a record number
of migrants heading to Europe, with more than 160,000 entering the
country so far this year.
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UN REFUGEE CHIEF SLAMS EU'S ASYLUM SYSTEM
The
head of the U.N. refugee agency has said the Europe Union's asylum
system is "completely dysfunctional," urging the bloc to better
coordinate its response to the influx of refugees.
Antonio
Guterres said the response could include EU deployment of triage
centers to register migrants pouring into countries like Italy and
Greece. Such "hotspots" could help officials distinguish refugees from
others who "don't need protection," he said.
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