United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

BELGRADE - Serbia acts well toward asylum seekers in transit and takes care of their wellbeing while they are in its territory, said High Commissioner for Refugees in Belgrade Hans Friedrich Schodder said on Wednesday.

BELGRADE- Around 10,000 people from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries entered Serbia over the first four months of 2015, and the number is expected to exceed 30,000 by year-end, officials of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights told a press conference on Monday.

The United Nations welcomed on April 24 the European Union's plan to triple the size of its naval search mission in the Mediterranean, but said the key test was whether lives were saved and those fleeing war had a chance of gaining asylum.

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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has noted that 1,300 emigrants have found their death in the Mediterranean only in April.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA - The UN refugee agency on Tuesday urged European leaders to do more to help Greece and Italy cope with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and to put protection of people at the center of debate.

Italian police have arrested two suspected people traffickers among the survivors of the migrant boat that capsized off Libya on April 19, as the UN said 800 people were killed in the Mediterranean's worst migrant disaster.

EU foreign ministers will be joined April 20 by their interior minister colleagues to discuss the latest migrant disaster in the Mediterranean which may have cost 700 lives, an EU official said.

Hundreds are now feared dead after another boat, said to be carrying out between 500 and 700 migrants, overturned off Libya.

The incident occurred some 200 km south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to Italian coastguard officials quoted by the BBC.  

As many as 700 migrants were feared drowned April 19 after their packed boat capsized off Libya in what was described as the deadliest such disaster to date in the Mediterranean.