#AceNewsServices – Featured Report:April.20: The EU is facing mounting pressure over its tackling of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, and is gathering for an emergency summit, days after a boat capsized off Libyan coast, leaving hundreds dead.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday that “the EU has no more excuses, the member states have no more excuses.”
“We need immediate action from the EU and the member states,” she added.
Human rights activists lashed out at the EU, accusing the bloc of failing to deal with the migrant crisis.
Amnesty International criticized European governments for “ongoing negligence towards the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean,” which has led to “a more than 50-fold increase in migrant and refugee deaths since the beginning of 2015.”
The UN Refugee Agency expressed its “deep shock” at the latest tragedy.
Spokesman for UNCHR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), Carlotta Sami, described the disaster as “one of the most tragic shipwrecks in the Mediterranean,” and called for “shared responsibility” for the migrant situation of EU countries.
Other human rights activists supported the cause, too.
“In this affair, Europe is guilty of failing to assist a person in danger. That is to our shame,” the founder of the Medecins Sans Frontieres medics charity and ex-French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner told Le Parisien.
“Before anything else, let’s throw a lifeline to all these people who are drowning by creating a European rescue fleet for the 28 members of the European Union. One rescue boat for each country,” he added.
On Sunday, Pope Francis also appealed “to the international community to react decisively and quickly to see that such tragedies are not repeated.”
ANS2015
