REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, VALLETTA -- Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, have called for an urgent EU summit meeting in order to seek solution to the dire situation after the worst disaster in recent years occurred in the Mediterranean on Saturday night.
Only 28 migrants out of 700 seem to have survived by far after their boat capsized some 130 miles south of Lampedusa on Saturday night. This disaster follows another similar tragedy which took place last week, during which more than 400 migrants drowned after their vessel sank off the Libyan coast.
In these last days, Muscat, was reported by The Times of Malta to say that apparently, people are getting too used to these deaths, as if it is normal for hundreds of people to die in a shipwreck.
The European Union (EU) was "deeply chagrined by the tragic developments in the Mediterranean today, but also over the past days and weeks", said the European Commission in a statement on Sunday.
The European Commission said it was currently consulting with member states, European agencies and international organizations in order to prepare a new European Migration Strategy, which would be adopted by the Commission in mid-May.
"What we need is immediate actions to prevent further loss of life as well as a comprehensive approach to managing migration better in all its aspects," the Commission urged in the statement.
The High Representative and Vice-president Federica Mogherini of the European Union External Action (EEAS) also urged in a statement that "now is time for the European Union as such to tackle these tragedies without delay", adding that "we need to save human lives all together, as all together we need to protect our borders and to fight the trafficking of human beings."
Mogherini also said in the statement that the issue of migration was put as a formal point on the agenda of the Foreign Affairs Council on Monday in Luxemburg, where she would present a set of proposals for Libya, one of the main routes of illegal trafficking of migrants.
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