Denmark turns back 36 people at German border

BRUSSELS — The latest news on the influx of asylum seekers and other migrants into Europe. All times local:

2:10 p.m.

Danish police say 36 of the 1,366 people they have checked for photo IDs in the past two days at the German border have been refused entry into Denmark.

The National Police added yesterday a person suspected of human smuggling had been detained. Two other suspects who had been detained have been released.

Danes increased border crossing checks on Monday, a move to make sure migrants headed for Sweden and turned back there don't get stuck in Denmark.

That decision came hours after Sweden demanded that all arriving passengers show ID, a way of trying to discourage migrants, many of whom don't carry passports or other forms of ID, from entering Sweden, which received a record 160,000 asylum-seekers in 2015.

Sweden also has reported a sharp drop in asylum-seekers since introducing the new measures at midnight Sunday.

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1:50 p.m.

Sweden's migration minister says that the equivalent of 1,000 classrooms full of children have arrived in the country recently seeking refuge.

Justice and Migration Minister Morgan Johannson told reporters in Brussels on yesterday that 26,000 young migrants, some of them unaccompanied by adults, had come and "that is 1,000 school classes arriving in Sweden in four months."

Sweden has noted a sharp drop in migrant arrivals since photo ID checks were introduced. Denmark on Monday tightened checks on its border with Germany, blaming some Swedish measures and broader concerns about security because of migrant flows.

Johannson said that 115,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in four months, obliging Sweden to take exceptional border control measures.

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12:55 p.m.

Germany, Sweden and Denmark are warning that more must be done to stop migrants entering Europe from Turkey but that they hope to ease border restrictions as soon as possible.

Senior German Interior Ministry official Ole Schroeder says that "our problem in Europe is that we do not have a functioning system, especially at the Turkey-Greece border."

He also said yesterday that a European Union plan to share refugees arriving in Greece and Italy is not working and warned that when EU responses fail "we will come to measures from the member states."

It came after talks between senior migration officials from the three countries in Brussels. The meeting was called after Sweden introduced ID checks on all people traveling to Denmark, which then tightened controls on its border with Germany.

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