BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The Latest on Europe’s migration crisis (all times local):
6:15 p.m.
The United Nations refugee chief is urging Greece to improve shelter quality, sanitation and security in its refugee camps.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says camp conditions pose severe security risks to their most vulnerable residents, particularly women and children. He says European Union countries should speed up their promised intake of many of the nearly 60,000 people stuck in Greece the country’s Balkan neighbors closed their borders this spring.
Grandi said Thursday that some camps needed better shelters and sanitation, while all needed stronger policing in and around the sites.
He was speaking at an Athens press conference after visiting camps and meeting government officials.
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3:50 p.m.
Officials say Hungary’s police could join the Serbian troops patrolling the Balkan country’s borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria to help curb the influx of migrants trying to reach the European Union.
Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic and Hungarian counterpart Sandor Pinter discussed the idea in a meeting Thursday held near the border where hundreds of migrants are camping awaiting entry into EU-member Hungary.
Stefanovic says an increase in migrant arrivals is likely in the autumn when worsening weather will avert many from a more perilous crossing over the Mediterranean Sea.
Serbia has already beefed up its army and police troops at the borders with Bulgaria and Macedonia where migrants have been crossing illegally in a bid to reach Hungary and other EU nations.
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3:40 p.m.
A former manager of a home for asylum-seekers in Germany has been charged with raping a Syrian woman.
Johannes Kamp, a spokesman for the state court in the western town of Arnsberg, said Thursday that the 50-year-old Dutch citizen has been in custody since mid-June. He said an indictment has now been filed against the man, who is a resident in Germany, but it’s not clear when the case will go to trial.
The man met the 22-year-old woman while running the shelter in the small town of Finnentrop, and she allegedly moved in with him. He is accused of sexually assaulting and raping her in his apartment.
Prosecutors say that the man denies the charges and says the sex was consensual, the regional Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung daily reported.
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11:10 a.m.
Serbian police say they have arrested a man after finding 34 migrants in his house in a Belgrade suburb.
Police said Thursday that the man is suspected of people smuggling for allegedly hiding the migrants in the house.
Serbia has stepped up efforts to curb the entry of migrants passing through in a bid to reach the European Union. Balkan nations closed their borders for migrants fleeing war and poverty in March, but the flow has continued through illegal routes used by people smugglers.
Hundreds of migrants have been camping along Serbia’s border with EU-member Hungary, which allows about 30 people into the country per day.
More than 1 million migrants entered Europe in 2015.