Police said late Wednesday that a border patrol intercepted two inflatable dinghies that had been rowed across the river from the Turkish side late Tuesday night with 24 people on board, including seven children. During the arrest, police said, the patrol and the group of refugees came under fire from a suspected smuggler still on the Turkish side of the border, who fired about 30 shots. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative on migration says the numbers of Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe shows no sign of abating despite the onset of winter. German authorities say 181,000 asylum-seekers entered the country in October, 17,000 more than September as the flow continued to increase despite worsening weather conditions Greek authorities say the flow of refugees and other migrants heading north across the country's border with Macedonia has slowed to a comparative trickle as a ferry strike now in its fourth day traps thousands of people on eastern Aegean islands. The seamen's union, which called the strike that began Monday to protest austerity measures that are part of Greece's bailout, has come under pressure to allow exceptions for ferries carrying refugees. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says he witnessed migrants and refugees reaching Lesbos by dinghy shortly after landing on the island to inaugurate a fast-track registration center. We saw firsthand a makeshift boat arriving, full of refugees. [...] we realized that is a criminal process being carried out by the smugglers who cram refugees onto vessels that are not boats, but makeshift inflatables, he said. The Commission says the refugee crisis has resulted in additional government spending but that it could have a small, positive impact on European economies within a few years. Greek ferries are tied up in port for a fourth day, stranding tens of thousands of residents of small islands, preventing agricultural produce from reaching mainland markets and trapping thousands of refugees on eastern Aegean islands. Pressure has mounted on the seamen's union to allow exceptions for ferries chartered to transport the refugees and other migrants who reach Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast.
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