The Czech Republic is sending a unit of 20 police officers to Slovenia to help the tiny Alpine nation cope with the influx of thousands of migrants and protect the external border of Europe's visa-free Schengen zone. Police spokesman Domagoj Dzigumovic said Monday that 8,400 entered on Sunday alone, which made it one of the busiest days since Sept. 16 when Hungary sealed its border with Serbia and the migrant route was diverted to Croatia. Ambulance workers are protesting on the Greek island of Lesbos, where state budget cuts have left only three vehicles in operation despite a massive daily influx of refugees. Costas Filis, head of the island's ambulance workers association, told The Associated Press that five ambulances were awaiting repairs and that staff shortages had forced rescuers to work up to 16 hours at a time. Greece's coast guard says it has rescued more than 1,400 people in 39 separate search-and-rescue operations in the eastern Aegean over the weekend. More than 70 people, many of them children, have died in the last week when their smuggling boats overturned or sank in rough seas as they tried to reach Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast. Bavaria's governor is declaring himself satisfied, for now, with a weekend compromise with fellow conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel's party on how to handle Europe's migrant crisis. Horst Seehofer has been the most prominent critic of Merkel's welcoming approach to the refugees and had demanded government action by Sunday to limit the influx. The conservatives issued a joint paper calling for a reduction in the number of refugees arriving in Germany and for "transit zones" to weed out people who have no realistic claim to asylum. The deputy presidential spokesman, Zafar Hashemi, says as a signatory to the Geneva Convention, Afghanistan is obliged to accept its citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected.
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