Danish Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg said Tuesday that Denmark will extend border controls on its frontier with Germany for an additional 20 days to February 23 in a bid to quell migration.

Stojberg added that the government believed large numbers of migrants could likely attempt to enter the country via Germany after Sweden imposed border controls.

EU member states are struggling to form a cohesive action plan to tackle the wave of migration that witnessed more than one million people - many of them fleeing war and poverty in conflict-stricken countries - enter the 28-nation bloc in 2015.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that refugees should view their new residences in the country as temporary, adding that it is expected they leave "once there is peace in Syria again."

Merkel has come under increased scrutiny for her open-door policy to those fleeing war in Iraq and Syria, where the "Islamic State" militant group seized large swathes of land in both countries.

Syria has witnessed nearly five years of civil war resulting in the deaths of over 250,000 people and displacement of nearly half the population.

More deaths at sea

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced Tuesday that more than 67,000 migrants crossed into the EU in January 2016, with a significant increase in unaccompanied minors.

It "is many, many times what we saw a year ago in the previous January," said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the IOM.

Some 20,000 of those who made the crossing in January were unaccompanied minors, comprising about one-third of the total, added Millman.

ls/kms (AP, Reuters, dpa)