IDOMENI, Greece: People pass a former border installation at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni yesterday. — AFP

BERLIN: Germany and some other EU countries are planning to ask the EU Commission for an extension of border controls within the Schengen passport-free travel zone for another six months because they fear a new wave of migrants. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere's spokesman says a letter is being sent yesterday asking for an extension of the controls on the German-Austrian border, which were implemented last year when thousands of migrants crossed into Germany daily.

De Maizere has expressed concern before that an increasing number of migrants will try to reach Europe this summer by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from lawless Libya to Italy, then travel north to Austria and Germany. Germany registered nearly 1.1 million new arrivals last year and is keen to bring the numbers down in 2016.

Meanwhile, Denmark yesterday extended random identification checks along the German border until June 2, saying they were needed to deter "an extraordinarily large number of refugees and migrants" from entering the country. "There is still considerable pressure on Europe's borders and... migrants and refugees find alternative routes when the borders are closed," Integration Minister Inger Stojberg said in a statement.

"When asylum seekers without proper ID papers cannot travel to Sweden, there remains a serious risk that many refugees and migrants can become stranded in this country," she added.

The controls had already been extended five times, most recently until May 3. They were introduced on January 4, hours after Sweden began requiring rail, bus and ferry companies to verify the identities of people travelling from Denmark. Last year Denmark largely served as a transit country for migrants travelling to Sweden, which at the time had some of Europe's most generous asylum rules. Denmark received more than 21,000 asylum applications in 2015, a 44 percent jump from 2014, but significantly fewer than Sweden, its northern neighbour, which registered 163,000 asylum applications in the same year.

The number of asylum seekers in Denmark has dropped significantly this year, from 641 in the week after border controls were introduced to just 45 last week, according to police data compiled by the government

Unaccompanied minors

Some 88,300 unaccompanied minors sought asylum in the European Union in 2015, 13 percent of them children younger than 14, crossing continents without their parents to seek a place of safety, EU data showed yesterday.

More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa reached Europe last year. While that was roughly double the 2014 figure, the number of unaccompanied minors quadrupled, statistics agency Eurostat said. Minors made up about a third of the 1.26 million first-time asylum applications filed in the EU last year. European Union states disagree on how to handle Europe's worst migration crisis since World War Two and anti-immigrant sentiment has grown, even in countries that traditionally have a generous approach to helping people seeking refuge.

Four in 10 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Sweden, where some have called for greater checks, suspicious that adults are passing themselves off as children in order to secure protection they might otherwise be denied. Eurostat's figures refer specifically to asylum applicants "considered to be unaccompanied minors", meaning EU states accepted the youngsters' declared age or established it themselves through age assessment procedures.

More than 90 percent of the minors travelling without a parent or guardian were boys and more than half of them were between 16 and 17 years old. Half were Afghans and the second largest group were Syrians, at 16 percent of the total. After Sweden, Germany, Hungary and Austria followed as the main destinations for unaccompanied underage asylum seekers.

Seeking to stem the influx of people, the EU has struck a deal with Turkey to stop people crossing from there into the bloc. Turkey hosts some 2.7 million refugees from the conflict in neighboring Syria. - Agencies