[Church:] E.U. leaders will meet with Turkish officials in the coming hours to tackle a migrant crisis at an emergency summit in Brussels. Turkey's prime minister met with the German chancellor and Dutch prime minister, ahead of Monday's meeting, to discuss ways to ease the influx of migrants arriving in Europe.
[Barnett:] Now the summit comes after at least 25 more refugees were killed when their boat capsized off the Turkish coast. This was on Sunday. And keep this in mind. It's estimated that more than 134,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean in just the first few months of 2016. But Turkey's prime minister says progress has been made to solve the crisis. Listen. For more on the migrant crisis, we have team coverage for you. Our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon is near the GreekMacedonian border.
[Church:] And chief diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson is following the crisis summit from London. So, let's start with you, Nic. This joint plan appears to rely on Turkey preventing migrants from leaving its shores. Is that the answer, and how is this going to work if that's the case? How might Turkey be compensated, perhaps?
[Nic Robertson, Cnn International Diplomatic Editor:] Well, if you break it down really, really simply, Europe is looking to protect itself from this wave of migrants. And it's looking along the chain of how they get to Europe, to cut that chain. And they are sort of vocalizing it as a not so much putting the emphasis on the migrants themselves but the smugglers and the networks that get them across the Aegean Sea, from Turkey to Greece. So, they want to cut it there. So, they will have a discussion there and what they want to agree with the Turks is that anyone picked up in Turkish waters goes back to Turkey. And that Turkey does more to stop people trying to cross that short bit of sea, the Aegean Sea to get into Greece. Frontex, the European frontier agency and NATO have got or NATO at least have got warships in that area now to help both the Greek authorities and the Turkish authorities. That's one thing. But the next step in the chain is the so-called Western Balkan route. And this doesn't involve Turkey in so much as this stage in the process since beyond Turkish borders. But they want to close that Western Balkan route. That's all the countries that from Turkey to Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria. They want them all to agree to host and take on the migrants that arrive in their countries as per the agreement, rather than waving them through. All of this is done to sort of cut the pressure on Europe. They want to give more aid to Greece, as well. But of course the biggest focus is at the beginning end of the chain, with Turkey. Turkey has received European Union funds. And the European Union wants to see Turkey doing more than it is already.
[Church:] Yes. The problem here, it doesn't really get to the cause of it, does it? If the migrants and refugees can't leave Turkey at this point, where do they go? And what happens to them next? Now, on paper, it probably looks fairly simple. But the reality is the numbers that they're dealing with here.
[Robertson:] The numbers are staggering. An estimated 1.3 million migrants coming into Europe last year. So far as we just heard there are over 134,000 deaths along the way. The idea here is that, the implication would be, is that Turkey would harden its external borders to take more effort to sort of give migrants refugees, inside Turkey, a better opportunity to stay. But it also says that what the European Union would do, would be to help Greece by returning sort of non-desperate, if you will, migrants that have no reason economic migrants, if you will, that are come trying to come to Europe, return them to their countries very quickly. But if we go back to September of last year, the European Union agreed to quote a system that said, you know, between Italy and Greece, where most of the migrants were arriving, that Europe would divide up and reallocate and allocate quota system. A 160,000 refugees would be sent. And the idea was that 160,000 would take care of the problem, which was 10 times that number almost. A 160,000 refugees would be spread out across Europe on a quota system will so far, less than 1,000 of those have been sent out. So, what Europe has decided among what the European Union nations have decided among themselves, hasn't been working out. The internal borders, the Schengen Borders are under a huge amount of pressure. And this is a struggle to keep Europe as a unified with free travel, for normal Europeans internal inside those borders.
[Barnett:] And, Nic, based on what you've said there, we want to cross over to our Arwa Damon who is on the Greek side of the border with Macedonia. There is a growing humanitarian bottleneck there. Arwa, I'm wondering what the people you've talked to think of today's talks, if they they're going to go anywhere. And also psychologically, how do these families manage living in limbo after some of them fled from certain death?
[Arwa Damon, Cnn Senior International Correspondent:] Well, there's a couple of things to highlight here, Errol. First and foremost, these brightly-colored tents you see behind us, they extend all of the way, as far as the eye can see. And this is because this was a transit point. And it could hold up to 1,500 people. But now, there are upwards of 10,000 individuals, including a significant number of women and children that are stranded here and talked to most of them. And they will tell you that they are feeling the effect of that crackdown along the Turkish shoreline. Many of them have tried anywhere between three, five, up to seven times to actually make it through Turkish waters to the Greek Island. But despite the crackdown, what we see there is a very evident, is that people will keep trying until they make it. The other issue is that, in Europe's effort to try to, as Nic saying they protect their external border on what they have. And this is the first physical border that people will reach, once they hit this West Balkan route, is effectively almost completely shut it down. Macedonia at this stage is only allowing at best a few hundred people to actually cross through. And that has resulted in this significant bottleneck. And in as many aid organizations have been warning, turning potentially turning Greece into a massive refugee camp. I speak to the people here and they have already been through so much, as we have been reporting for months now. In terms of what they've gone through in their homelands fleeing the wars of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But also having come this too far to have to wait to have to live with this uncertainty of not knowing how long they are going to be here, not knowing exactly what is going to happen. And a lot of them, yes, they are very aware that these meetings are going to be taking place today. They are placing hope on the fact that maybe are result of these meetings is going to be the borders opening. But the reality is that that is not going to be the case. Because Europe at this stage is not going to want to continue implementing this policy avoiding people through, rather they are going to be. It really seems continuing to try to shut down, to try to build more barricades to try to allocate blame and responsibility to other nations. Which is almost having the most catastrophic effect on those most in need. Because the measures to try to ease the burden of their journey throughout the various stages of this trip have not yet been put into place.
[Barnett:] All right. Arwa Damon, live for us there on the GreekMacedonian border. And Nic Robertson joining us live from London as these talks get underway. Thanks to you both for joining us.
[Church:] We'll take a quick break here. But still to come, the democrats came out swinging on Sunday night. The combative tone at the latest U.S. presidential debate.
[Barnett:] Plus, nearly two years after the disappearance of MH370 a deadline is looming for families of the missing.
[Church:] Plus, we will explain how NASA astronaut Scott Kelly grew taller during his year in space.