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UN agencies call for better protection of migrants at risk at sea

Xinhua, April 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

UN agencies called for better protection of migrants at risk at sea, in response to reports that about 400 migrants have died off the coast of Libya, when their boat capsized, a UN spokesman told reporters here Wednesday.

"The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has appealed again to governments across the region to prioritize the saving of lives, including by urgently expanding and upgrading search and rescue capacities," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, stressed the importance of a robust rescue-at-sea mechanism in the central Mediterranean, bemoaning the fact that the Mare Nostrum rescue programme was never replaced by an equivalent capacity.

Tuesday's reports said that about 400 migrants died in an attempt to reach Italy from Libya when their boat capsized, the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea where the death toll from shipwrecks has surged this year in comparison with that from the same period last year. It was not clear exactly when the boat had capsized.

The deaths, if confirmed, would add to the skyrocketing numbers of migrants lost at sea: the International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 3,072 migrants are believed to have died in the Mediterranean last year, compared to an estimate of 700 in 2013.

"UNHCR has shared specific proposals, including establishing a European robust search and rescue operation, a possible European Union scheme to compensate shipping companies involved in rescuing people at sea, and a pilot relocation programme for Syrian refugees arriving in Italy and Greece," Dujarric said. "So far in 2015, some 31,500 people are known to have made crossings to these two countries and the numbers have recently been rising further."

The executive director of UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Yury Fedotov, also issued a statement from Doha, Qatar, at the 13th UN Crime Congress.

Fedotov said migrant smuggling cruelly exploits desperation and provides the criminal networks with enormous profits. "We must confront the criminals and break up their network," Fedotov said, adding that cooperation among nations, inter-governmental organizations and civil society must be strengthened. Endite