DHAKA: Turkish and EU leaders have gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on tackling Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

The EU has pledged €3bn (£2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing migrants and stemming the flow, reports the BBC.

Last year, more than a million people entered the EU illegally by boat, mainly going from Turkey to Greece.

Some 13,000 are stranded on Greece's border with Macedonia as European states seek to restrict entry.

Nato is expanding its naval mission against people-smuggling in the Aegean Sea to cover Turkish and Greek territorial waters, and will also increase its co-operation with the EU's border agency Frontex in the region.

The UK has announced that the amphibious landing ship RFA Mounts Bay will join naval vessels from Germany, Canada, Turkey and Greece in the area.

Migrants, many of them fleeing war zones in Syria and Iraq, continue to make the hazardous sea journey from Turkey to Greece's outer islands.

The human cost of the crisis was brought home again on Sunday when a boat capsized off Turkey with the loss of 25 lives.

EU states are divided over their response to the crisis with strains showing this year even in Germany and Sweden, seen as the countries most open to refugees.

Anti-migrant parties won a general election in Slovakia on Saturday which saw the far right gaining seats.

BDST: 1323 HRS, MAR 07, 2016
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