EU urges more help for migrants after latest Med boat tragedy

The EU urged member states on to do more to save migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean after the latest boat tragedy in which 300 people died.
The disaster has renewed concerns about the EU-run search and rescue mission, called Triton, which took over in November from the Italian navy's much larger Mare Nostrum operation.
"If we are to talk seriously about improving the situation then we also need to talk about financing it adequately," European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud told reporters.
"Pointing fingers is not going to get us anywhere. Tackling this common challenge has to be a joint effort of the commission and the member states working together."

In the latest tragedy, more than 300 migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, were feared drowned after four overcrowded dinghies sank, the UN refugee agency said. Twenty-nine Africans believed to have sailed in the same fleet died from exposure.
Italy decided to scale back the Mare Nostrum mission, which had patrolled as far as the Libyan coast, after its European Union partners refused to share running costs of around nine million euros USD 10 million a month.

Mare Nostrum was launched following a series of migrant boating disasters in the Mediterranean.
Triton, which comes under the authority of the EU borders agency Frontex, has a monthly budget of USD 3.3 million and its patrols are generally restricted to the territorial waters of EU member states.

"A budget of just 90 million euros a year, which is the budget of Frontex, does not equal the task of protecting Europe's common borders," Bertaud added.
"It is also time to be a little bit more honest: Frontex is not a Europe border guard system and if we want a Europe border guard system then we would have to set one up.