Paris: Newspapers across Europe furiously called on the EU today to act once and for all as the continent reeled from the shock of yet another migrant disaster — the deadliest on record in the Mediterranean.
More than 700 people are feared dead following Sunday’s capsize off Libya of a fishing boat crammed with people trying to reach Europe, with some reportedly locked below deck by smugglers and unable to fight their way out.
“The EU’s darkest day”, a “disgrace for the EU and its cynical, even macabre refugee policy”, “indifference is not an option”, declared the headlines. Newspapers from Portugal to Sweden lashed out at the European Union, whose ministers were headed into crisis talks after the latesttragedy, calling on the 28-member bloc to act once and for all.
“We cannot say ‘never again’ hundreds of times,” Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter wrote.
In Britain, The Telegraph focused on the EU meeting in Luxembourg, saying proposals should include “immediate assistance for countries hosting the thousands of migrants”.
It also called on more pressure to be piled onto countries such as Eritrea — from where many migrants flee open-ended military conscription, ruthless repression and other ills — to improve their rights record.
Belgium daily Le Soir singled out EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk, saying they had the duty to organise a coordinated response to the tragedy.
“European leaders knew full well that the number of victims at sea from African migration would smash records from the spring,” it wrote.
“Waiting impassively in front of the hourglass where every grain that drops is a lost human life could be explained by the blindness of some or the cynicism of others, waiting that a sufficient number of dead would create the conditions for mobilisation.” Some newspapers called for a new search-and-rescue operation like Italy’s Mare Nostrum, which was scrapped in October due to budget constraints and critism from the EU that it was encouraging migrants to head to Europe across the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, survivor accounts of the number aboard varied, with the Italian Coast Guard saying that the capsized boat had a capacity for “hundreds” of people.
Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers. Earlier, authorities said a survivor told them 700 migrants were on board. It was not immediately clear if they were referring to the same survivor, and Premier Matteo Renzi said Italian authorities were “not in a position to confirm or verify” how many were on board. (Agencies)
