Geneva - the United Nations refugee agency appealed Tuesday to the European countries to do more to save the people fleeing the violence in Libya and dying by the hundreds in the boats overloaded which capsized in the Mediterranean Sea.
A spokesman for the High Commissioner to the United Nations for refugees, said European authorities patrolling the Mediterranean should not wait to receive calls of distress, stricken ship before offering assistance.
"Any vessel leaving the Libya must be considered, at first glance, like a ship in need of assistance," the spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, told journalists in Geneva.
It seems now that hundreds of Libyans were killed at sea in recent weeks, and Fleming said that the boats will be only of incessant.
The Office of the United Nations said that, since March 25, when boats began to leave the Libya, at least 800 people are likely missing for - and this figure does not include those who died Friday when a boat believed that carrying 600 personswas capsized near Tripoli, the Libyan capital, killing most, if not most of the people on board.
Fleming said that a Somali diplomat in Tripoli told the agency that 16 bodies, including those of two babies had been retrieved so far.
And the number of migrants is increasing, she said. Five ships carrying 2,400 people arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the last few days and each of these vessels had to be rescued by the Italian coastguard and the police, she said.
"We believe sincerely that fact any Italian coast guard his possible", said Fleming. But she added that, given the number of people have drowned, "something does not work".
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