German, Balkan leaders meet over refugee crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock over the deaths of up to 50 migrants found in a lorry in Austria, at a meeting with western Balkan leaders in Vienna to discuss tackling the biggest migration crisis to hit Europe since World War II.

During the meeting, Merkel said the "horrible" discovery of between 20 and 50 dead migrants and refugees in a lorry in Austria was a warning to Europe to get to grips with the migrant crisis. 

The vehicle was found on a parking strip off the highway in Burgenland state, Austrian police said.

"We were all shaken by the horrible news that up to 50 people died ... although these were people coming to seek safety," Merkel said in Vienna. "This is a warning to work to resolve this problem and show solidarity."

She added that the western Balkan countries - Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania - were facing "huge challenges" in terms of the influx of migrants and refugees.

In recent days, the situation has come to a head with police in Macedonia and Hungary firing tear gas in chaotic scenes and Budapest now considered deploying its army to stem a record influx of refugees and migrants seeking to reach western Europe. 

The meeting comes a day after Merkel vowed zero tolerance for "vile" anti-migrant violence and as criticism grows against the EU for failing to coordinate a solution. "There will be no tolerance of those who question the dignity of other people," she said. 

Meanwhile, Libya's coast guard said Thursday that at least 10 people had died when a boat carrying some 200 migrants sank off the coast of the country.

On Wednesday, rescuers found at least 50 corpses of passengers thought to have choked to death on gas fumes on stricken boats in the Mediterranean.

"We are working with very limited resources," a Libyan coast gaurd official told AFP. "Most of the boats we use are fishing boats that we borrow from their owners," he said.

The recent deaths add to the toll of more than 2,300 people - many from Africa and the Middle East - who have died while attempting the perilous crossing since the beginning of 2015.

Over the weekend, 3,000 migrants and refugees - mostly from Africa and the Middle East - were rescued off the Libyan coast in one day. 

Alarmed by the worsening dilemma, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged countries "in Europe and elsewhere to prove their compassion and do much more to bring an end to the crisis".

Hamstrung by a lack of a coherent European response, governments have undertaken at times contradictory approaches to the problem.

Hungary is building a vast razor-wire barrier to keep migrants out, while Czech Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babis has called for the visa-free Schengen zone to be closed with the help of NATO troops.

"We left because we were scared - we had fear, bombs, war, killing, death," one Syrian man said as he headed for the Hungarian border this week.

Meanwhile Germany, which is preparing to receive a record 800,000 asylum-seekers this year, has confirmed it has eased the asylum application procedure for Syrians fleeing the country's brutal civil war - a decision praised by US President Barack Obama in a phone call with Merkel on Wednesday, according to a White House statement. 

But Berlin's largesse has not been welcomed by everyone at home, particularly in the east where a spate of attacks has targeted refugee centres.

On her visit to a migrant shelter in the eastern town of Heidenau on Wednesday, Merkel was greeted by about 200 protesters, some booing and shouting "traitor, traitor" and "we are the mob" as she arrived.

For now, however, public opinion seems to be largely behind Merkel with 60 percent of Germans polled by public broadcaster ZDF saying that Europe's biggest economy was capable of hosting the asylum-seekers.

UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres and French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve have called for the urgent creation of more so-called "hotspots" - processing centres to sort refugees fleeing war from economic migrants who are simply in search of a better life.

The UN's new top emergency relief official, Stephen O’Brien, has also called on the the world’s wealthier countries to increase aid to war zones in the Middle East and Africa. 

“If you’re frightened for your life or unable to feed your children your first response is to flee to where you think you might be able to meet those needs,” O’Brien, the under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, told the New York Times in an interview, after returned from his first visits to Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.