Slovenia Buckles as Migrants Rush to Escape Winter, Border Closures

Slovenia on Tuesday called in the army to help manage a surge of asylum seekers desperately trying to reach northern Europe ahead of winter, as the tiny EU state became the latest hotspot on the migrant trail.

"The inflow of migrants over the last three days has exceeded all manageable possibilities," a government statement said, adding that parliament would be asked to approve legislation allowing soldiers to help border police in the crisis "under very specific circumstances".

Calling on the European Union to show greater solidarity, Ljubljana warned it was "delusional" to expect individual countries to tackle the bloc's greatest refugee crisis since 1945.

Some 643,000 migrants and refugees, mainly fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have arrived in Europe so far this year, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Of these, more than 500,000 crossed from Turkey to Greece by sea, a dangerous journey that has left more than 3,000 people dead or missing.

A senior Greek police official warned Tuesday the number of arrivals had "radically surged over the past 24 hours", as migrants rushed across the Mediterranean in fear of bad weather and more EU countries shutting their borders.

The ultimate goal for many is the EU's biggest economy Germany, which expects to take in around one million refugees this year, and where Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy has sparked an angry backlash.

Some 20,000 protesters massed in the German city of Dresden on Monday evening to mark the anniversary of the anti-migrant PEGIDA movement, two days after a man with a neo-Nazi background stabbed a pro-refugee politician in the neck, badly wounding her.

However, Merkel supporters also turned out in force, with counter-demonstrators almost matching the PEGIDA numbers.

Tensions have built along the migrant trail after Hungary shut key borders with Serbia and Croatia to migrants with razor wire -- pushing the flow west to Slovenia, which in turn has also limited arrivals, along with Croatia.

The moves have led to thousands of people being left stranded in heavy rain at Croatia's frontier with Serbia, after they traveled up through Greece and Macedonia.

Around 1,000 people were waiting to cross into Croatia on Tuesday at the Berkasovo border crossing after spending the night in the freezing cold, an AFP correspondent said, adding that more buses carrying migrants kept arriving throughout the morning.

Dozens of tents have sprung up along the roadside, which has been turned into a mud field after hours of heavy rain.

Crowds were chanting "Open! Open!", as security guards only allowed up to 50 people in every half an hour.

"This is so cold. We couldn't sleep. I came 24 hours ago and spent night in a tent," Azme Solei from Syria told AFP.

Solei said he had spent a year in a refugee camp in Turkey but decided to leave because of "unbearable" living conditions

"I would like to go to Norway as I heard they behave nice towards refugees there," he said.

More than 18,468 migrants have arrived in Slovenia since Saturday, when Hungary shut its border with Croatia, Ljubljana said on Tuesday.

The nation of two million people has repeatedly warned that the influx largely exceeded its daily quota.

"Slovenia calls on the European Union states and institutions to engage actively in dealing with this disproportionate weight for our state... European solidarity is being challenged," the government said.

Buckling under the strain, Slovenia had been forced to call on the army to help manage the flow, Prime Minister Miro Cerar told journalists.

However, "this does not mean a state of emergency", he said.

The government criticized Zagreb for lifting restrictions at the Serbian border on Monday night, letting thousands of migrants trek to Slovenia.

Ljubljana also accused neighboring Austria of capping its intake of migrants and only allowing in 2,000 on Monday.

But Vienna rejected the claim, saying more than 4,280 people had entered from Slovenia on Monday, with a further 1,700 expected on Tuesday morning.

Hungary's sealing of the border coincided with the arrival of more than 15,000 migrants in Macedonia from Greece, who then undertook the grueling journey towards Slovenia on foot.