Over 700 migrants killed as their boat overturns off Libya – EU worried about the influx of migrants

#migrantboat #Libya #Italy #EU #DonaldTusk #MareNostrum #triton In one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean, over 700 migrants who were traveling from war torn Libya to Europe, were killed when their 20-meter fishing boat overturned off the coast of Libya. As per reports of Italy's coastguard, only 28 people survived. One of the survivors, a Bangladeshi, who was shifted to a Sicily hospital by helicopter has put the number of casualties at 950 which included about 200 women and 50 children.
If the death toll of over 700 is confirmed, it would take the death toll since the start of 2015 to more than 1,600. This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 20 April 2015.

Against this background, EU ministers are entering into crisis talks under pressure to confront the people-smuggling gangs. EU president Donald Tusk is considering holding a special summit on the crisis in Luxemburg because member states Spain, Greece, Germany and France have urged for immediate action. The Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is spearheading the calls for a summit by the end of the week.
Rights groups including Amnesty International want the restoration of an Italian navy search-and-rescue operation known as Mare Nostrum that had been suspended at the end of last year. This has been replaced by a much smaller EU-run operation called Triton because of financial constraints.
It is understandable because the influx of migrants into European countries is putting a tremendous pressure on the resources of the countries involved.

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Over 200 migrants headed for Europe meet a watery grave in the Mediterranean Sea

#marenostrum #triton #UNHCR #mediterraneansea #migrants UNHCR spokeswoman in Italy has confirmed that more than 200 migrants have met a watery grave in the Mediterranean Sea after the motorboats they were travelling in sank as reported in bbc.com dated 11 February 2015.
It was possible to rescue only nine after they had been four days at sea and the remaining 203 were drowned. The UNHCR's spokeswoman described the situation as a "horrible and enormous tragedy".
Moreover, on Monday, at least 29 migrants died after the inflatable boat carrying them overturned in high seas. Seven of them were already dead when they were picked up near the Italian island of Lampedusa. Another 22 succumbed to hypothermia after they had spent over 18 hours on the open deck of the vessel which picked them up.
As informed by the International Organization for Migration, the two boats involved in the latest tragedy had departed from the Libyan coast on Saturday and each of the boats was carrying in excess of 100 people when they capsized.
Italy has to deal with migrants from African countries regularly and, hence, had started its Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue mission in October 2013 – that was as a result of a tragedy off Lampedusa in which 366 people died. The aim of this mission was to look for ships carrying migrants that may have run into trouble off the Libyan coast. However, it was disbanded after a year.
The European Union is now running a border control operation, called Triton – it has less number of ships and a much smaller area of operations. In the opinion of human rights groups, the closing down of Mare Nostrum would endanger lives. And, the mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, has said that Triton is not Mare Nostrum.