Former European government leaders have echoed a call by charities to see search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean expanded immediately in light of the crisis.
The group of senior politicians, including a former president and three ex-prime ministers, signed a letter addressed to the leaders of governments attending an EU emergency summit in Brussels.
They called the recent death toll, which has now run into thousands, "a stain on the conscience of our continent".
The letter, co-signed by former EU commissioner Lord Patten, ex-president of Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga and former Italian prime minister Massimo D'Alema, also urged the EU to "go beyond" a 10-point plan drawn up on Monday and called for an EU-wide relocation system.
The summit was called after around 800 migrants were feared to have drowned when their boat capsized at the weekend off the coast of Libya.
Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, welcomed the letter and said: "What we need now is life-saving action, not face-saving rhetoric. It's quite simple: EU leaders must decide to immediately restart the rescue within 48 hours on at least the scale of 2014.
"Dithering further will mean that more children will drown in horrific circumstances, alone, terrified and in the hold of a capsizing boat. Today is the day when Europe can act to save lives."
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-04-23/ex-government-leaders-call-for-urgent-action-on-migrants/Amazing how they can worry about this now they are NOT in charge, rather than when they were in a position to actually do something. This migrant problem is far from new.
