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 The death toll from Sunday's shipwreck off the coast of Libya was
uncertain after officials said there had been at least 700 people on
board, some reportedly locked in the hold.
Hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the east, another vessel carrying
dozens of migrants ran aground off the Greek island of Rhodes on
Monday. Greek coast guards said at least three people were killed.
European officials are struggling to come up with a policy that
would respond more humanely to an exodus of migrants traveling by
sea from Africa and Asia to Europe, without worsening the crisis by
encouraging more to leave.
Sunday's shipwreck off Libya appears to be the deadliest ever
involving migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
A Bangladeshi survivor told police there had been 950 passengers
onboard, according to Italian media. The vessel sank when passengers
rushed to one side to attract attention from a passing merchant
ship.
 In the Maltese capital Valletta, coast-guard officers brought ashore
the 24 corpses found so far. Wearing white protective suits, they
carried the victims in body-bags off the Italian ship Gregoretti and
deposited them in hearses as survivors looked on from the deck.
Twenty-eight survivors rescued so far will be taken on the same boat
to the Sicilian port of Catania.
Europe's politicians face criticism from aid and human rights groups
that they have been abandoning those in need of help to pander to
anti-immigrant sentiment among the electorates in their home
countries.
An Italian search and rescue mission called "Mare Nostrum" was
canceled last year due to its cost and domestic political pressure,
to be replaced by a smaller-scale EU mission called "Triton", with a
smaller budget and narrower remit.
This year more than 1,500 people fleeing war and poverty are
estimated to have died in the Mediterranean, packed into rickety
boats by human traffickers in a bid to reach a better life in
Europe. The deaths are up 15-fold compared with the same period of
2014.
"The reputation of Europe is at stake," said Italian Foreign
Minister Paolo Gentiloni. "I have been saying for weeks and months
that Europe has to do more, now unfortunately the reality has hit us
in the face."
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However there are differing views among what needs to be done, from
ramping up costly search and rescue operations to trying to
intervene in lawless Libya, where the vast majority of migrant boats
depart.
Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Monday the United
Nations should mandate a force to intervene directly in Libya to
disrupt or attack people-traffickers and stop the boats from setting
off.
Lawlessness in Libya, where two rival governments are fighting for
control, has made it almost impossible to police the criminal gangs
who can charge thousands of dollars to bring mainly sub-Saharan
Africans to Europe.
"I believe that the (European) focus should be what should be done
in Libya to stop the boats," said Muscat, who is in Rome on Monday
to meet with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
"Unless something is done about Libya, these scenes will be
repeating themselves."
Only last week around 400 migrants were reported to have died
attempting to reach Italy from Libya when their boat capsized.
Before Sunday's disaster, the International Organization for
Migration estimated around 20,000 migrants had reached the Italian
coast this year, and 900 had died.
(Reporting by Chris Scicluna in Valletta and James Mackenzie in
Catania, writing by Gavin Jones and Isla Binnie; Editing by Peter
Graff)
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