Europe has failed to agree how to share the burden of refugees daily entering the EU, as five countries either shut their borders or introduced border controls, leaving thousands of migrants in limbo and increasing pressure on other countries.

It looks possible that EU ministers will agree on asylum seeker numbers on Monday, writes European Correspondent Ann Cahill

“We can build walls, we can build fences. But imagine for a second it were you, your child in your arms, the world you knew torn apart around you. There is no price you would not pay, there is no wall you would not climb, no sea you would not sail, no border you would not cross if it is war or the barbarism of the so-called Islamic State that you are fleeing”.

It’s easy to muster compassion for people fleeing wars, but Europe also needs an influx of workers to counteract its falling birth rates, says Ian Buruma 

Sometimes things seen cannot be unseen. The tragedy in Syria, from where the main impetus of refugees stems, has been a horror. 

It is a sunny morning on Sicily’s east coast and Mount Etna is a postcard, rising from a green-blue sea up through olive groves, orange orchards and steep hill towns to ascend a towering snowy cone ringed by cotton-wool clouds.

A radical change to immigration policy that would hand over much of the responsibility to the EU was being bitterly negotiated by EU leaders in Brussels.

Hungary’s decision to break EU rules shutting the country to asylum seekers will cause a major row at today’s EU leaders summit in Brussels.

EU leaders are planning to agree a system of detaining migrants, forcibly returning them and destroying vessels to deter them crossing the Mediterranean. 

Milan city officials have appealed for help in managing the huge number of migrants arriving from southern Italy after rescue at sea, as rising numbers are unable to find beds and are sleeping in the train station.

Eritrea may have committed crimes against humanity, a year-long UN human rights inquiry said in a report published yesterday, describing extrajudicial killings, widespread torture, sexual slavery, and enforced labour.

EU plans to destroy the boats of smugglers bringing desperate migrants across the Mediterranean and share the refugee burden more evenly came under fresh fire last night from within and outside the EU.

Defence Minister Simon Coveney has said the Defence Forces are ready to deploy in the Mediterranean to help with the growing migrant crisis. He has likened the predicament of today’s migrants to those who travelled in the coffin ships that left this country during the The Famine.

A yacht and a dinghy crammed with immigrants trying to enter Greece capsized today in the eastern Aegean Sea, leaving at least 22 dead, including four children, and several more missing.

Ireland’s “victory” of ensuring every country had its own commissioner could be scuppered in November when the new body is put together. Instead there could be super-commissioners, and not-so-super-commissioners clustered around them.

Air pollution at dangerous levels

A Somali man who allegedly organised a ship crossing of migrants from northern Africa to Europe that ended in a shipwreck killing more than 365 people has been arrested by police in Sicily.

Italy’s navy rescued about 370 migrants in the waters between Sicily and Libya yesterday as the government deployed ships, helicopters, and drones to help avert further shipwrecks that have already drowned hundreds this month.

Malta’s prime minister said 27 people are confirmed dead after the capsizing of a migrant ship off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

A ship carrying African migrants to Europe has caught fire and capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, killing at least 114 people, including two pregnant women, with 150 still missing.

Horses in their winter jackets look somewhat doleful as they stand casting long shadows in the sloping fields above the sea.

The torrent of refugees fleeing Libya has suddenly slowed, UN officials say.

ITALIAN police arrested 14 people in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

Italian police arrested 14 people across the country in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

Somalia’s prime minister today said he does not expect any more major fighting against rival Islamic fighters and his Ethiopian military backer described the operation as within weeks of being completed.

A young Eritrean widow and two family members were shot to death as they celebrated Thanksgiving in California, and two of her late husband’s brothers were arrested.

Hijackers forced a plane carrying about 70 Eritreans from Libya to land in the Sudanese capital today before surrendering to security forces, according to a UN refugee agency official.

Hijackers forced a plane carrying about 70 people, believed to be Eritreans, to land in the Sudanese capital before surrendering to security forces, a UN official said.