Refugees risk freezing to death in winter, head of European Commission warns

More than 500,000 migrants have entered Greece so far by sea from Turkey, and more than 120 have drowned.

“Refugees need to be treated in a humane manner along the length of the Western Balkans route to avoid a humanitarian tragedy in Europe”, Juncker said, Al Jazeera reported.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, acknowledged that the meeting was about managing the situation rather than tackling the root cause; any real solution, she said, would have to involve Ankara. “Winter will be especially tough for the many who are living in insulated garages, basements or unfinished buildings, animal stalls, or other flimsy makeshift structures”, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, according to a UNHCR statement. “In addition, we will deploy 400 police officers to Slovenia within a week”, Juncker said.

Hungary closed its border with Croatia last week.

The United Nations refugee agency would help establish them.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that FRONTEX should contribute to slowing down the influx of refugees in to Croatia.

The politicians seemed to be playing a blame game at the summit, however, shifting the responsibility for the worst migrant and refugee crisis since the WWII onto each other.

“As winter looms, the sight of thousands of refugees sleeping rough as they make their way through Europe represents a damning indictment of the EU’s failure to offer a coordinated response to the refugee crisis”, said John Dalhuisen of Amnesty worldwide. Austrian officials say thousands of refugees and other migrants have spent the night outdoors in cold fall weather as authorities struggle to keep up with the steady flow.

“If we do not deliver some immediate and concrete actions on the ground in the next few days and weeks, I believe the European Union and Europe as a whole will start falling apart”, he said.

Mr. Guterres also said that Europe’s protection of refugees must be a “project of all European countries”, with the “will to receive refugees coming from troubled areas”, while also noting the importance of adequate registration capacities in “hotspot” areas for the registration and screening of refugees, as well as to facilitate interaction with their countries of relocation.

They now mainly travel from Turkey to Greece and then go north to Macedonia and Serbia before entering Croatia and move on to Slovenia and Austria. As a result, Slovenia saw 58,000 arrivals in the week leading up to Saturday, and many people are waiting in wet and cold conditions.

The coast guard says the boat carried 63 migrants at the time and 53 of the passengers were rescued.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (right) welcomes Greece Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to a gathering of European leaders to discuss the migrant crisis in Europe on October 25, 2015, in Brussels, Belgium.

Syrian refugee Mohamed Alabdulameed, 28, is one of many trekking across Europe as part of a desperate bid to escape the war ravaging his country.