Refugees fleeing from Ukraine and the Middle East land up in watery graves

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has revealed that over 3,400 migrants, who have attempted to reach Europe across the Mediterranean this year, have met watery graves. Nearly 207,000 people had tried to make the dangerous crossing since January and the governments have been urged to do more to prevent further casualties.
The latest figures of 207,000 is three times more than the previous high of 70,000 reached during the Libyan civil war in 2011.
Most of those trying to reach the shores of Europe are escaping war or poverty and seeking asylum or a better life – they usually set sail from Libya and are bound for Italy and Malta.
Those tracked by UNHCR include 60,051 Syrians and 4,561 Eritreans.
The statistics have been declared at the beginning of a two-day meeting in Geneva hosted by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres on how best to protect migrants escaping persecution, war, instability and poverty. It seems states are usually preoccupied with securing their own borders rather than preventing the loss of life and that is a mistake, and the wrong reaction in a time when people are forced to flee from wars. The security aspects and immigration management are concerns for any country, but the policies need to be designed such that human lives do not end up in coffins.
Italy is the preferred and the first port of call for many of the refugees and Italy has, this year, affected rescue of more than 150,000 people from overcrowded and unseaworthy boats.