German vice chancellor tells EU Turkey running out of capacity with refugees

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said Turkey and other countries sharing a border with Syria should be helped with their refugee crises to stem the flow of asylum seekers into Western Europe.

In remarks made after a meeting with local administrators in Berlin on Tuesday, Gabriel said: "We have to talk with Turkey and help them because their capacities are running out. I know Turkey has struggled a lot in the last years. I myself visited the refugee camps there, which have high standards."

According to the U.N., there are 1.9 million Syrian refugees registered in Turkey as of Aug. 25. Since April 2011, Turkey has spent $6 billion to assist Syrian refugees, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

He added that other countries neighboring Syria also needed help to deal with refugees and emphasized the need for improving refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.The refugee crisis has put Europe's border-free Schengen agreement under pressure, as many EU countries, particularly those in central and eastern Europe, remain reluctant to accept tens of thousands of refugees.

Referencing an EU interior ministers meeting held in Brussels on Monday that failed to reach an agreement over quotas for 120,000 refugees, Gabriel said that Europe had disgraced itself.

"Yesterday, Europe again disgraced itself," he said. He emphasized that Germany could not solve the refugee problem on its own.

Newly released statistics reveal that more than 2,800 refugees died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea so far this year, including 167 in the waters between Greece and Turkey, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

The vast majority, 2,620 people, died crossing from North Africa to southern Europe, namely Italy, the agency said of statistics updated on Tuesday.

The figure is slightly lower than the one for the same period last year, 2,993.

Nearly 465,000 people - more than double last year's figure - reached Europe via the Mediterranean, including 340,991 people who landed in Greece and 121,619 in Italy, the IOM said.

Most refugees hail from Syria, where refugees have fled the four-year-long civil war, with 175,375 Syrians reaching Greece and 6,710 arriving in Italy.

"Over this past weekend and through the first days of this week, an estimated 72 migrants have lost their lives in attempts to reach the Greek islands from Turkey," the IOM said in a statement.