Our bodies of 3 small children discovered after boat capsizes

The bodies of three babies have been recovered after a boat carrying around 120 migrants capsized off Libya.

The country's coastguard says about 100 of them are missing at sea and feared dead.

Another 16 people who had been on the rubber dingy were rescued.

It was unclear where the smugglers' boat had left from or when.

A coastguard spokesman quoted a Yemeni survivor as saying the vessel was carrying 125 migrants before it capsized east of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

The survivors were later brought back to the town of Tajoura, east of the city.

A Spanish rescue ship patrolling the Mediterranean said Italian officials had told it to allow the Libyan coast guard to respond to the smuggling boat's distress call.

Shortly after, they said they heard 100 migrants were missing and feared dead in the same area.

Image: Sixteen migrants have been rescued

Libya has become a major transit point to Europe for those fleeing poverty and civil war elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East.

The Brussels summit underscored how Europe's 2015 spike in immigration continues to haunt the bloc, despite a sharp drop in arrivals of people fleeing conflict and economic hardship.

Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the international organisation for migration, said it was "very pleased at the solidarity and consensus" that emerged from an EU summit in Brussels, in particular with the "front line states" like Italy.

Mr Doyle said he believed most of the "disembarkation centres" planned by the EU would be in Europe, though he said it was up to the EU to determine which countries would host them.

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Charlie Yaxley, a spokesman for refugee agency UNHCR, said it was "still awaiting the legal analysis" of the summit's outcome, but would welcome greater collaboration on asylum.

He noted that recently, for the fifth year in a row, the "grim milestone" of 1,000 migrant deaths in the Mediterranean was crossed.

Original Article

World

December 25, 2018