European migrant crisis

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.

By James Mackenzie & Robin Emmott

The European Union proposed doubling the size of its Mediterranean search and rescue operations on Monday, as the first bodies were brought ashore of as many as 900 people feared killed in the deadliest known shipwreck of migrants trying to reach Europe.

Bulgarian Border Police registered a triple increase in the number of illegal migrant crossings of the border with Turkey in the first three months of 2015.

A total of 956 people were detained as they attempted to cross the border illegally, which is almost a triple increase compared to the same period in 2014.

The latest estimates point that about 800 migrants died when their boat capsized off the Libyan coast at the weekend.

Earlier accounts spoke of 700 victims, while one of the surviving passengers claimed there were 950 people on board of the capsized vessel.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has expressed support for a proposal to double funding for the EU naval operation in the Mediterranean.

De Maiziere, as cited by DPA, said that the European Commission had presented a 10-point plan to address the migration crisis during Monday's meeting of EU foreign and interior ministers in Luxembourg.

The headline could have read "Making Money Off Others' Misery", yet Italian daily La Repubblica has a migrant smuggler, arrested on Sicily recently, laughing about migrant-laden boats ferrying their human cargo across the Mediterranean to the "promise land", the European Union in this case.

The International Organization for Migration received a distress call from a sinking boat carrying 300 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

A spokesman of the organisation said that some twently people are believed to have drowned, the BBC reports.

The caller stated that at least three boats needed help in international waters.

A wooden sailboat carrying dozens of immigrants ran aground on April 20 off the coast of the Greek island of Rhodes and at least three people, including a child, have drowned, the Greek coast guard said.

It is unclear how or why a boat carrying migrants ran ashore.

Europe "collectively guilty" for drowning of migrants

PARIS -- Europe is collectively guilty of letting hundreds of migrants die in the Mediterranean, says a former French minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders.

Foreign ministers of EU member states are set to discuss Sunday's incident in Mediterranean in which hundreds are feared dead.

A vessel carrying up to 700 migrants capsized late on Saturday off Libya. Only 28 have been rescued so far. A survivor is quoted by various news sources as saying there were as many as 950 people on board, about 50 of them children and nearly 200 women.