The calls came after a packed boat carrying some 900 migrantsoverturned shortly before midnight on Saturday in Libyan waters, approximately 180 kilometres south of Italy’s Lampedusa Island.
Fewer than 30 people survived the incident and 24 bodies are said to have been recovered so far.
The International Organisation for Migration (IMO) described the disaster as “the worst tragedy in living memory involving migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.”
It was one of three similar incidents that were assisted by European authorities in 48 hours over last weekend and echoes the Lampedusa disaster of October 2013, which saw almost 600 lives lost in two separate incidents.
Calls for change
Former Portuguese Prime Minister and current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, and Teresa Tito de Morais, president of the Portuguese Refugee Council have both spoken out about these calamities.
Speaking in Geneva on Sunday, António Guterres said: “This disaster confirms how urgent it is to restore a robust rescue-at-sea operation and establish credible legal avenues to reach Europe. Otherwise people seeking safety will continue to perish at sea.”
But, he added, “It also points to the need for a comprehensive European approach to address the root causes that drive so many people to this tragic end. I hope the European Union will rise to the occasion, fully assuming a decisive role to prevent future such tragedies.”
The UNHCR called for an urgent response from the European Union to deal with the challenges faced by the thousands of people risking their lives to find safety in Europe.
On Monday EU foreign and interior ministers rushed to Luxembourg to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the deaths at sea and subsequently announced a ‘ten point action plan’ on migration.
EU leaders were also locked in a meeting on Thursday (23 April); agendas were cleared for the extraordinary summit “to discuss what we can and must do to alleviate the situation now” in the Mediterranean, EU council president Donald Tusk announced.
“Daily drama”
Meanwhile the Portuguese Refugee Council (CPR) has described the incidents as “a daily drama” that has “drastically worsened” in recent years.
In comments to the media, CPR president Teresa Morais said Europe “has the key to avoiding more tragedies in the Mediterranean”, but stressed it must “have a humanitarian approach.”
“This is a humanitarian emergency and the required solidarity is not, in my view, properly expressed in the resolutions adopted”, she said.
In a statement on its website the CPR states that Saturday’s disaster “grabbed national and international headlines because it involved a record number of deaths in a single incident (...) but it is a daily drama, and a few days before there had been several wrecks involving hundreds of irregular migrants, without the media giving them great importance.”
The council stressed that it and the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR “have repeatedly drawn attention to the serious humanitarian issue of the Mediterranean and the need to put human life as the first priority in controlling European borders.”
CPR says a number of factors have contributed towards the growth in human trafficking, including the replacement of the Italian border control Operation Mare Nostrum with the EU’s Frontex-conducted Operation Triton, and “the radical Islamists who are causing chaos on the coast of Libya.”
“In this context favourable to the trafficking and smuggling of people, the climatic situation in recent weeks has facilitated the use of increasingly fragile and overcrowded vessels”, the CPR added.
According to the UNHCR so far this year, more than 36,000 refugees and migrants have arrived by boat in southern Europe and, if the worst fears of this past weekend’s figures are confirmed, over 1,600 people will have died in less than four months.
Numbers from the IMO indicate more than 1,750 migrants perished in the Mediterranean since the start of the year - more than 30 times higher than during the same period of 2014.
In 2014, around 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean, and 3,500 lives were lost.
Portuguese involvement
Reports have also surfaced that a Portuguese-registered vessel could have contributed to Saturday’s disaster.
It was widely reported that the King Jacob was the first ship on the scene and provided assistance to the stricken vessel.
However, it has now emerged that the overloaded migrant boat could have capsized after colliding with the bigger ship, or pitching in its wake.
In its statement the CPR reveals: “It turns out that the load was such that the passage of a freighter ship (coincidently of Portuguese flag), all passengers moved to one of the boat’s sides, making it tip.
“Assisted by the freighter and, later, by another 17 ships, only a few dozen people were rescued. The small number of rescues is due to the fact that hundreds of migrants were locked in the hull (serving as a ballast to prevent the boat from easily overturning), causing the vessel to sink quickly.”
In a report by the Associated Press, UNHCR spokesman Carlotta Sami said “survivors told aid workers the wreck was caused when one of the smugglers crashed the boat against the Portuguese-flagged King Jacob container ship that had responded to a distress call.”
“The survivors said that the person who was steering the boat, their smuggler, was navigating badly, and he did a bad move that made it crash against the bigger ship,” Sami reportedly said by telephone from Sicily.
Arrests made
The Tunisian captain of the migrant ship was among the survivors and has since been arrested and charged with people trafficking and reckless multiple homicide.
A Syrian, allegedly a crew member, has also been charged with people trafficking.
According to The Telegraph, Italian prosecutors said that after the trawler’s 27-year-old captain, Mohammed Ali Malek “rammed the Portuguese vessel, terrified migrants rushed around the overcrowded boat, which was already unbalanced from the collision. The ship pitched in the water before finally tipping over, and sinking.”
Twenty-four hours later fresh disaster struck when another migrant boat crashed off a Greek island, causing three people to drown.
The Italian coast guard said 638 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies on Monday in six separate operations.
Stop the Deaths at Sea
Some reports suggest more than 1,700 migrants have perished in the Mediterranean last week alone.
A change.org petition to ask the European Union to ‘Stop the Deaths at Sea Now’ and “restore a robust operation of search and rescue at sea” has gathered more than 285,000 signatures since it was launched earlier this week.