Only 116 refugees of a promised 160,000 have been relocated by the European Union

The EU has relocated just 116 of the promised 160,000 refugees it has pledged to relocate from member states in the Mediterranean over the next two years.

New "state of play" figures published by the European Commission on Tuesday show that 86 asylum seekers have been relocated from Italy while the Guardian reports that a further 30 will be moved from Greece on Wednesday.

Member states agreed to relocate the 160,000 from failing states like Eritrea, Iraq and Syria, who they said were "in clear need of international protection", in September.

However, the figures show that at this early stage only 1,418 places have been made available by EU countries.

While the UK has pledged to take in 20,000 refugees over the next five years, it has decided to opt out of this EU relocation scheme.

More than 700,000 refugees have arrived in Italy and Greece alone this year and figures last week revealed that up to 700 children are now claiming asylum in Europe each day.

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