Five Mediterranean countries have asked the EU’s border agency Frontex to act inside third countries to save migrants’ lives as migrants risk their lives on dangerous boat journeys and become victims of human trafficking.
C. Rubini CTC, Vatican News
For governments across the Mediterranean region, the problem of human-trafficking gangs creating unseaworthy boats full of migrants has become a serious concern.
In a statement issued following a conference in Cyprus, the ministers of the MED-5 group, which includes Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta and Cyprus, called for a “reasonable approach in negotiations to achieve a truly common (European) refugee migration management system”.
The Cyprus interior minister, who hosted the meeting, said refugees make up four percent of the island’s population. Meanwhile, a search has resumed off the coast of two Greek islands that was postponed due to dangerous weather. The search began after two boats carrying migrants sank on Wednesday. On Friday night, rescuers recovered 18 bodies from the sea near the Aegean island of Lesvos off the coast of Turkey. Greece has accused Turkey, a country from which many of the human-trafficking boats depart, of not doing enough to stop traffickers.