EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini told member states on Monday they had “no more excuses” not to act on the Mediterranean migrant crisis as reports came through of another boat sinking with 300 people on board.
More than 700 people were feared dead after a fishing boat crammed with migrants seeking a better life in Europe capsized off libya on Sunday, with some survivors suggesting nearly 1,000 could have been on board. Arriving for the ministerial talks in luxembourg, Mogherini said the 28-nation bloc “has no more excuses, the member states have no more excuses”.
“We need immediate action from the EU and the member states,” she added. Italian and Maltese navy boats continued to scour waters off libya for the victims of Sunday’s disaster — the latest in a string of shipwrecks, which have claimed well over 1,000 lives since the start of 2015.
But the outlook appeared grim, with only 28 survivors rescued so far, along with 24 bodies. One survivor told Italian authorities that there were as many as 950 people on board and that some of them had been locked below deck by the smugglers.
The mass drowning, believed to be the deadliest in the Mediterranean, caused an outcry across Europe, where newspapers called it the “EU’s darkest day”.
“European leaders knew full well that the number of victims at sea from African migration would smash records from the spring,” Belgium daily le Soir wrote. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which is the top destination in Europe for migrants, said she was “appalled” by the disaster, calling it “not worthy of Europe”.
“A continent which feels committed to humanity must look for answers even when there are no easy answers,” her spokesman quoted her as saying.
Refugee and rights bodies demanded European Govern-ments beef up maritime rescue operations and address the underlying causes of the flood of asylum-seekers and migrants washing up on Europe’s shores.
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 overloaded rickety boats.