PARIS (AP) – The Latest on the flow of refugees and other migrants into Europe (all times local):
11:35 a.m.
A tiny trickle of Syrian and Iraqi refugees is being admitted into Macedonia at the Idomeni crossing on the border with Greece, as more than 11,000 remain camped around waiting for their turn.
Greek police say Macedonian authorities let in 320 people in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. Friday. A few dozen were being admitted later in the day.
Hundreds of brightly-colored tents cover the muddy ground around an overflowing official camp at Idomeni, stretching almost right up to the border.
Syrian Saswat Estif, 26, has been there for 15 days, waiting patiently as others jumped the queue to enter Macedonia.
He says “last night was cold and it rained a lot,” adding that “there’s not enough food.”
In Athens, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was briefing opposition leaders on the immigration crisis that has left more than 32,000 people stranded in Greece.
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11:20 a.m.
The United Nations refugee agency has criticized European Union leaders for warning migrants not to come to Europe when most people arriving are from conflict zones rather than looking for work.
UNHCR Europe bureau director Vincent Cochetel said Friday that “the inconvenient truth is that refugees are still coming to Europe because there are wars in the neighborhood of Europe.”
He told reporters in Brussels that “91 percent of the people arriving in Greece are coming from those three major crises,” in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He said almost half were Syrians.
On Thursday EU Council President Donald Tusk warned “all potential illegal economic migrants, wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe.”
People fleeing conflict have the right to apply for asylum under international law.
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11:15 a.m.
France’s top security official says the population of the sprawling Calais migrant camp is now at 3,800 people, down from a peak last year of 6,000, after and the inhabitants were relocated and many of the shanties later dismantled.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told BFM television on Friday that France has set up 102 shelters across the country for migrants, and blamed a handful of extremists for inciting them to protests that have included some who stitched their lips together.
The migrants converge in Calais in hopes of slipping across the Channel to Britain. The shantytown has become a flashpoint in relations between France and Britain and has fed far-right backlashes in both countries.