EU issues migrant warning amid distress call from another vessel
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EUROPEAN Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini told European nations yesterday they had “no more excuses” not to act on the migrant crisis as another boat with 300 people onboard issued a distress call from the Mediterranean.
A day after a fishing boat crammed with migrants capsized off Libya with the loss of hundreds of lives, EU foreign and interior ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss the flood of people desperately trying to reach Europe.
More than 700 people are feared dead in Sunday’s disaster, with some survivors suggesting nearly 1,000 could have been on board.
As the search for victims continued, the International Organization for Migration said it had received a distress call from another boat in the Mediterranean.
“The caller said that there are over 300 people on his boat and it is already sinking (and) he has already reported fatalities, 20 at least,” the IOM’s Federico Soda wrote in an email.
Soda said the IOM had given the Italian coast guard the coordinates for the boat and two other stricken vessels, but that rescuers were still responding to Sunday’s disaster.
Arriving at the talks in Luxembourg, Mogherini said the 28-nation EU had “no more excuses” now not to come up with a common response to the migrant tide. “We need immediate action from the EU and the member states,” she said.
EU president Donald Tusk said he would host an emergency summit on Thursday.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose country is among those bearing the brunt of the flood of migrants, said Rome was studying the possibility of mounting “targeted interventions” against the Libya-based people smugglers behind the crossings.
Europe’s southern shores have been swamped over the past two weeks with migrants fleeing war and hardship, mostly via Libya.
Another tragedy
In another tragedy, police in Greece reported three people killed, including a child, in the sinking of a boat off the island of Rhodes.
The sail boat ran aground on a crossing from Turkey.
Dramatic YouTube footage showed people trying to reach survivors huddled on a piece of wreckage as they were being swept by the waves towards the rocks. Ninety-three people were rescued alive, officials said.
Meanwhile, Italian and Maltese navy boats continued to scour the water for the victims of Sunday’s disaster, which brings to an estimated 1,600 the number of migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean this year, many times the toll over the same period last year.
Only 28 survivors have been rescued so far, along with 24 bodies, which were taken to Malta. One survivor told Italian authorities there were as many as 950 people on board and that some had been locked below deck by the smugglers.
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat urged the EU to address the chaos in war-torn Libya, which people smugglers have made the main launching pad for rickety overloaded boats that often run out of fuel half-way.
Speaking at a press conference with Muscat Italy’s Renzi said, “The hypothesis of military intervention (to stabilize Libya) is not on the table ... but what is possible are targeted interventions to destroy a criminal racket.”
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