At least 15 migrants seeking to reach Europe have drowned off Greece, while political talks in Germany, the EU's top destination for refugees, have failed to produce a consensus on how to handle the influx.

Key points: Emergency talks in Germany to solve asylum seeker crisis fall through

Emergency talks in Germany to solve asylum seeker crisis fall through Merkel's open-door policy is facing growing backlash in her government

Merkel's open-door policy is facing growing backlash in her government Boats continue to sink in Aegean Sea, with an estimated 80 killed in October alone

Two boats making the hazardous crossing from Turkey capsized in the Aegean Sea off Greek islands, leaving at least 15 dead, including six children, officials said.

The first shipwreck took place just 20 metres from the island of Samos.

The bodies of 10 migrants found locked inside the small boat's cabin, six of them children, were recovered from the capsized vessel, the Greek coastguard said.

The body of a young girl was found washed up on a beach, while 15 people were rescued alive.

In a separate incident off the nearby island of Farmakonisi, rescuers found the bodies of four migrants after a boat said by survivors to be carrying 15 people sank en route to Greece, authorities said.

Greek authorities and the Turkish coastguard "continue to search the zone to find the migrants who disappeared in the sinking, which probably took place off the Turkish coast," a representative of the Greek coastguard's press office told the AFP news agency.

Germany remains divided over how to handle crisis

Germany is the destination most of the asylum seekers are trying to reach, but the country's ruling coalition remains deeply divided over how to handle the influx.

The spokesman for chancellor Angela Merkel, Steffen Seibert, said after two rounds of weekend negotiations among party leaders that meetings would continue this week, amid the biggest asylum seeker influx since World War II.

"The three leaders of the coalition parties held constructive talks on all aspects of the refugee situation and will gather again on Thursday ahead of a conference of German state leaders," Mr Seibert said in a statement.

"They agree on several points, as well as on several points that still need to be resolved including the issue of 'transit zones'," he said, referring to a proposal to create airport-style processing points on Germany's borders to allow would-be asylum seekers who do not fulfil asylum criteria to be moved out quickly.

Ms Merkel called the emergency talks after her Bavarian ally, Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party, threatened her with unspecified consequences if she did not take action to limit the number of newcomers arriving into Germany by Sunday.

German chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy is facing a growing backlash. ( Reuters: Francois Lenoir )

The vast majority of the up to one million people arriving in the country this year are crossing the border from Austria into Bavaria.

While most Germans initially backed Ms Merkel's open-doors policy for those fleeing war and persecution, a growing backlash has piled pressure on the chancellor and exposed rifts within her conservative bloc.

The popular chancellor, who will mark a decade in power this month, has governed since 2013 in a left-right "grand coalition" with her Christian Union alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD).

The SPD has rejected the conservatives' transit zones proposal as too restrictive and called instead for each of Germany's 16 states to create registration centres for asylum seekers.

Germany, Europe's top economy and number one destination for migrants and refugees, has taken a range of steps in recent weeks to stem the tide.

These include limiting the right to political asylum to exceptional cases for nationals from Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, and accelerating expulsion procedures for those denied asylum.

On Friday, Germany announced that the influx massing at its border with Austria would now be funnelled through five entry points to foster a more "orderly" passage.

Deaths the latest in a string of recent drownings

The latest tragedies bring the migrant death toll in Greece's waters in the past month to more than 80, many of them children.

Asylum seekers struggle to leave a half-sunken boat in the Aegean sea. ( Reuters: Giorgos Moutafis, file photo )

Despite the increasingly perilous conditions at sea at the onset of winter, refugees from Syria and other troublespots continue to pile into boats heading west, for fear that Europe is about to close its borders.

On Friday alone 22 people, including 17 children, lost their lives trying to cross to the eastern Aegean islands from Turkey, to which more than two million Syrian asylum seekers have fled.

That followed another black day on Wednesday when 24 migrants — 11 of them children — died in five shipwrecks off Lesbos, Samos and Agathonisi.

Since the beginning of the year, over 600,000 migrants have landed on Greece's shores, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

Adding arrivals in Italy, the total number of migrants to have crossed the Mediterranean this year stands at over 740,000.

AFP

