The Latest: About 1,300 migrants stranded in Serbia
BERLIN (AP) - The Latest on the migrant crisis in Europe (all times local):
2:10 p.m.
Serbia's interior minister says some 1,300 migrants remain stranded in the country after the closure of the Balkan route for their passage toward Western Europe.
Nebojsa Stefanovic said Friday there are no new arrivals of the refugees after police and the army stepped up patrols along the borders "to prevent illegal entries."
He says Serbia will accept any deal reached between the European Union and Turkey on solving the migrant crisis that has seen some 900,000 people fleeing wars and poverty transit through the country on their way toward wealthier European states.
Serbia and other Balkan states shut their borders for migrants on March 8 after Austria said it will no longer let them in.
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1:00 p.m.
Italy's president, on a visit to Cameroon, is calling for foreign aid programs to help ease the migrant crisis.
President Sergio Mattarrella, speaking to university students Friday, decried what he called some Europeans' opinion that "raising walls, erecting barbed wire fences," can solve the problem.
Italy's head of state said such thinking, besides being "morally unacceptable," is "completely ineffective." He advocated foreign assistance cooperation programs to help Africans in their homelands.
The Italian government has long campaigned for such an approach to encourage Africans to stay home and avoid attempting risky sea voyages arranged by human traffickers to reach Europe in hope of a better life.
Unless the Africans are eligible for asylum, they face deportation from Europe.
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12:15 p.m.
A small group of activists has hung banners from the walls of the Acropolis in Athens, to protest restrictions on the movements of refugees and migrants into Europe.
About 50 people were involved in the peaceful protest. Police said they were not called to handle Friday's incident, and the protesters left shortly after the display.
The banners read "Open Borders," and "Safe Passage Stop Wars."
Although Greek authorities strongly discourage the practice, activist groups and left-wing parties occasionally use the ancient citadel as a prop for political protests, hanging banners from its walls.
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12:05 p.m.
Greece's interior minister has compared conditions at a crowded refugee tent city on the country's border with Macedonia to a Nazi concentration camp, blaming the suffering on some European countries' closed border policies.
Panagiotis Kouroumplis told reporters he "doesn't hesitate to say" that the Idomeni camp is a modern version of the Dachau camp operated by the Nazis in Germany.
During a visit to Idomeni Friday, Kouroumplis said the situation was a result of the "logic of closed borders" by countries that refused to accept refugees.
More than 46,000 people are trapped in Greece, after Austria and a series of Balkan countries stopped letting through refugees who reach Greece from Turkey and want to go to Europe's prosperous heartland. Greece wants refugees to move from Idomeni to organized shelters.
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10:30 a.m.
The German Red Cross society says it is sending a mobile health station to the Greek town of Idomeni to help migrants stranded at the border with Macedonia.
The aid group says the clinic, which will be operated jointly with the Finnish Red Crescent, can serve 10,000 people.
The Red Cross said in a statement Friday that it is planning to run the health station for four months, starting next week.
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9:30 a.m.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says the refugee emergency is not something to be bargained over, as the European Union looks to send back tens of thousands of migrants to Turkey.
Davutoglu said on Friday that "for Turkey, the refugee issue is not an issue of bargaining, but an issue of values."
He spoke as he arrived for talks with EU leaders. Europe is looking to outsource to Turkey a refugee emergency that has divided the 28-nation bloc.
Turkey will take back all irregular migrants newly arriving in Greece. For every Syrian among them, the EU will welcome in one Syrian refugee from Turkey. Ankara will also receive billions of euros in aid, visa-free travel for Turks and faster EU membership talks.
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9:10 a.m.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon says building barriers won't solve the migrant crisis in Europe.
The United Nations secretary-general told German daily Bild in an interview published Friday that "building walls, discriminating against people or sending them back is no answer to the problem."
Ban praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel's "human political leadership" in dealing with the migrant crisis and urged other politicians to follow her example.
He declined to comment on speculation that Merkel might be nominated to succeed him in the top U.N. role when his second term ends on Dec. 31.