Tragedy at sea

The Italian Coast Guard's boat had to struggle through raging seas, with strong winds and waves up to nine meters high, to reach the scene of the disaster. A hugely overloaded dinghy carrying 105 refugees had got into difficulties just a few miles off the coast of Libya.

"The crew risked their lives and took everyone on board," the Coast Guard's spokesman, Filippo Marini, said, describing the dangerous operation. "Our people are exhausted. They're battling waves more than nine meters high," he continued. "It's virtually impossible to do anything in conditions like that. It's little short of a miracle that a few people could be rescued."

The men, women and children who set off for the European mainland from the Libyan coast in extreme weather conditions were also risking their lives. Their boat quickly got into distress. For almost 30 of them, help arrived too late. Some were already dead; others died on the Coast Guard's ship, presumably of exhaustion and hypothermia.

"It's terrible. There were a lot of young people among them. They were soaked to the skin; they all froze to death," Pietro Bartolo, a paramedic, told the newspaper La Repubblica. The death toll could rise still further. Some of the migrants were brought to Sicily by helicopter overnight in a critical condition.

Operation Triton is inadequate

The mayor of Lampedusa, Giusa Nicolini, told the Italian news agency ANSA the Italian Coast Guard had received a desperate call for help. Nicolini said the tragedy was a scandal. It was no longer possible to prevent such disasters since the expiration of the Mare Nostrum program in October, she said, because no other operation had replaced it. "Triton is Frontex," said Nicolini. "It's about border protection. And as you can see, it wasn't Frontex or Triton who carried out this rescue operation. The call came directly from the migrants to our Coast Guard."

The operation Mare Nostrum was initiated after the tragedy in the Mediterranean off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013, in which 366 migrants died. According to official figures, Mare Nostrum saved the lives of well in excess of 100,000 refugees. The Italian navy supplied the operation with large ships that patrolled the Mediterranean. But Mare Nostrum ended after just one year, in October 2014 – because it was costing an estimated 10 million euros a month, and because saving refugees in the Mediterranean was deemed to be a European responsibility.

"The 366 people who died off Lampedusa didn't help, the Pope's words didn't help; we're back where we were before Mare Nostrum. That's the reality," said Nicolini.

366 dead, and nothing has happened

Triton, the European Union's successor mission, has to make do with much less funding. Things are made even more difficult by the fact that Triton only monitors a zone just off the European coast.

"The people who froze to death after they were saved would still be alive if they'd been taken onto Mare Nostrum ships, which were always stationed well to the south of Lampedusa," said Mayor Giusa Nicolini. "If the aim was to have more boats and fewer survivors, then they've achieved it."

"EU is taking mass death into account"

Aid organizations warn that more people are going to die in the Mediterranean. In January alone an estimated 3,700 refugees are believed to have made it across the sea to Italy, despite bad weather conditions.

And the number of people risking dangerous journeys to try to get to Europe will continue to rise, according to Karl Kopp of the refugee organization Pro Asyl.

"When it was set up, Mare Nostrum was an absolute emergency measure in terms of European sea rescue," Kopp explains.

However, he says that Europe has now deliberately taken a step back from sea rescue. Triton has a small operational area, and the distances its boats have to cover are too great. Kopp says this means that mass death in the Mediterranean is consciously being taken into account.

"What Europe is doing is disgraceful," he says. "The EU is deliberately trying to scare people off coming to Europe with the deaths of asylum-seeking migrants." Kopp says this begs the question of what a human life is worth to those in authority in Brussels. if an essential rescue mission cannot get EU funding.