The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned that thousands of refugees could be left in "legal limbo" as European countries adopt different border rules to deal with the record influx of migrants. It has also called for the establishment of big European-run reception centers in countries where migrants are arriving.

In the meantime, the European Union will today hold a meeting on spreading the burden of the refugee crisis across the bloc. The meeting comes a day after Germany admitted it could no longer cope with a record influx of refugees and reintroduced border controls.

European interior ministers are due to vote on a plan to redistribute an initial forty-thousand asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea through mandatory quotas, though Central and East European states have opposed this.

Amid the political strife among European governments, the crisis claimed yet more lives. On Sunday, thirty-four refugees, almost half of them babies and children, drowned off a Greek island when their boat sank.