The Latest: UN agencies decry Hungarian border tightening

BERLIN – The Latest on Europe's response to mass migration (all times local):

3:50 p.m.

U.N. agencies have warned of dire conditions for migrants on the Serbia-Hungary border after Hungary this week adopted measures that severely restricting their flow.

The U.N. in Serbia said Friday that after the new measures were introduced, "the number of refugees and migrants on the Serbian side of the border has doubled to above 1,300 — the majority of them women and children."

The new rules allow Hungarian police to return across the border to Serbia the migrants detained within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the Hungarian border fences protected by razor wire.

The UN says close to 800 asylum-seekers are now waiting in the open on the Serbian territory outside the fence lacking shelter and sanitation.

More than 1 million migrants used the Balkan route to cross to Western Europe before it officially closed in March.

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11:30 a.m.

Some 222,000 asylum-seekers arrived in Germany in the first half of this year, the government said Friday — reflecting a much-reduced influx after the route through the Balkans was largely blocked and the European Union made a deal with Turkey to cut arrivals by sea.

Last year, nearly 1.1 million people were registered as asylum-seekers in Germany. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he isn't making any forecast for how many will arrive in 2016, given uncertainty about future developments.

In all, 222,264 people were registered as asylum-seekers between January and June. The numbers declined sharply after 91,671 arrived in January. In June, the figure was 16,335, similar to the previous two months.

At the height of the influx through the Balkans last year, Germany registered more than 206,000 asylum-seekers in a single month in November.

Syrians were the largest single group so far this year, accounting for 2,615 people in June and 74,511 in the year's first half, followed by Afghans.