OSLO, Norway (AP) — The latest on the stream of refugees and other migrants crossing Europe. All times local:
12:45 p.m.
The Swedish government has extended temporary border controls by a month until Feb. 8.
Sweden reintroduced the border controls in November and has extended them several times in a bid to stem the flow of migrants entering the country from Denmark and Germany. Sweden received more than 160,000 asylum-seekers last year.
The European Union isn’t supposed to have any internal border controls but member states can temporarily reintroduce them if they face threats to public order or security.
The government said Thursday that “the conditions on which the earlier decisions were taken still apply.”
As of this week, the government is also requiring companies providing ferry, train or bus service from neighboring countries to check the IDs of all passengers heading to Sweden.
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12:40 p.m.
The European Union says Turkey is not doing enough to halt the flow of migrants as countries in northern Europe tighten border controls in an effort to manage the arrivals.
European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said on Thursday that arrivals into Europe from Turkey “have remained relatively high, so there is still a lot of work to do there.”
He told reporters in Amsterdam that “we are a long way from being satisfied.”
Turkey agreed in November to do more to stem the flow of migrants into Greece in exchange for billions of euros in refugee aid money, an easing of visa restrictions and the fast-tracking of its EU membership process.
A top German interior ministry official said Wednesday that some 3,200 people are arriving in Germany each day and that numbers have not declined.
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11:55 a.m.
A spokeswoman for Poland’s border guards says 30 Polish guards have left for Slovenia to help tighten its border with Croatia.
Agnieszka Golias told The Associated Press on Thursday that the guards are being sent at Slovenia’s request. Together with Slovenian police they will be patrolling the border in the Brezice region, connected by major road and railway routes with Croatia’s capital, Zagreb.
Their mission will run through Feb. 4 and their task will be to prevent migrants from making illegal crossings, surveying spots where such crossings occur, and they will support local police in maintaining order in the area.
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11:45 a.m.
Norwegian immigration officials say 31,145 people applied for asylum in the country last year, almost three times as many as in 2014.
Presenting the statistics on Thursday, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration said one-third of the asylum-seekers were Syrians. The second biggest group was Afghans, followed by Iraqis and Eritreans.
The agency said just over half of the asylum-seekers were adult men, 15 percent were adult women and 33 percent were minors.
About 5,300 of the minors were unaccompanied, most of them from Afghanistan.
Officials project that up to 60,000 people could apply for asylum in Norway, one of Europe’s richest countries, in 2016.
Neighboring Sweden received nearly 163,000 asylum-seekers last year.
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