Rome--A surge of migrants pouring into Europe from across the Mediterranean won't end before chaos in Libya is controlled, Italy's prime minister said Friday, as the Vatican condemned a deadly clash between Muslim and Christian refugees on one boat.
Italian authorities have rescued more than 11,000 migrants making the often deadly voyage from North Africa in the past six days, with hundreds more expected Friday, the coastguard said.
The migrant wave has swelled in recent days on the back of the worsening security situation in Libya -- the staging post for most of the crossings -- as well as milder spring weather. Alarm and outrage is growing in Europe as the death toll mounts in capsizes and sinkings of unseaworthy craft used by ruthless people smugglers, with many of them taking advantage of the lawlessness in Libya, which has a long Mediterranean coastline.
"It's a sea, not a cemetery," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Friday in Washington. "The problem in this moment is the situation on the ground in Libya."
Aid workers said Friday a woman was found dead and 15 other people, including a six-month baby, were found injured on an inflatable dinghy carrying 90 people that had been adrift for two days.
The woman had been taken onboard despite suffering serious burns in a gas canister blast in a Libyan camp housing migrants waiting to be smuggled into Europe, the UN's refugee agency said.
More than 300 migrants were rescued on another stricken boat Friday, among them 45 women and 23 children, rescuers said.
About 400 other migrants rescued in the Aegean Sea in recent days arrived Friday at the Port of Piraeus in Athens.
AFP
