BERLIN (AP) — The Latest on the continuing influx of refugees and other migrants into Europe (all times local):

12:15 p.m.

A migration monitoring agency says deaths of refugees and migrants crossing the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece are "increasing at an alarming rate."

Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, says 218 people have died in January on that eastern Mediterranean route.

He told reporters in Geneva the deaths have occurred even though only 55,000 people — a "very small number" compared with last year's record wave of migration into Europe — have made the crossing this month.

Overall, Millman said 244 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean including deaths on the traditionally more deadly route between Libya and Italy.

He said IOM had reported earlier Friday that six bodies were found on a boat that had been rescued at sea there.

11:20 a.m.

The Dutch justice ministry says it has reached an agreement with Albania that clears the way for the Netherlands to send rejected Albanian asylum-seekers back to their home country more quickly.

Under the deal announced Friday, the Dutch can put rejected asylum-seekers who refuse to go home voluntarily on special government flights to Albania.

The ministry says "the Netherlands is no longer dependent on commercial airlines and large groups can be sent home together."

The agreement comes amid a steep rise in the number of Albanians seeking asylum in the Netherlands — more than 750 in the last four months. Dutch authorities did not grant asylum to a single Albanian last year, when more than 1,000 applied.

10:15 a.m.

Police in southwestern Germany are looking for suspects after someone threw a hand grenade over the fence of an asylum-seekers' home early Friday morning in the town of Villingen-Schwenningen.

Regional police spokesman Thomas Kalmbach says "it was just luck" the device did not explode and nobody was harmed.

Police say the grenade still contained its explosives but it was not clear whether it still had a detonator. Forensics experts are investigating.

Kalmbach said an unidentified person threw the device toward the home at 1:15 a.m.

Security personnel spotted the grenade and kept residents away while police responded.

A bomb squad destroyed the device in a controlled explosion on the scene at about 5 a.m. after evacuating the 20 residents from the home.

Germany took in nearly 1.1 million asylum-seekers last year and there have been multiple attacks on such residences, though primarily arson attacks are on unoccupied buildings.