Reggio de Calabre, Italy--Amnesty International accused the EU of putting thousands of migrants at risk Wednesday by scrapping rescue operations in the Mediterranean as Italian coastguards said no more survivors have been found from a shipwreck which may have claimed 400 lives.
The rights group accused Europe of "turning its back on its responsibilities and clearly threatening thousands of lives" by forcing Italy to abandon its Mare Nostrum rescue mission last year in favour of the surveillance patrols currently being carried out by its borders agency Frontex.
Jean-François Dubost, Amnesty's displaced persons director in Paris, said the latest tragedy highlighted the "horror of nothing having been sorted out in the Mediterranean.
"In demanding an end to the Mare Nostrum rescue operation that saved 170,000 lives, and replacing it will a surveillance mission, the EU has turned its back on its responsibilities and clearly threatens thousands of lives," he added.
Italian coastguards said Wednesday that no more survivors had been found from the latest migrant boat to sink.
The vessel capsized off the Libyan coast on Sunday, with survivors who were brought to Italy telling charity workers that as many as 400 others perished.
In a particularly tragic twist, the boat appears to have overturned because of the excitement caused by the sighting of rescuers.
According to the International Organization for Migration, which has interviewed some of the survivors, between 500 and 550 people, many of them young, were crammed onto the vessel at the time.
Spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said even before the latest sinking, more than 500 migrants, many refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, had died so far this year trying to cross to Europe -- ten times the toll over the same period last year.
AFP
