Reacting on Wednesday 8 April to the deaths of at least 70 migrants in the shipwreck in the Mediterranean on 5 April, Italian Socialist Sandra Zampa, Chair of the Migration Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, reiterated the Assembly’s call in 2025 “for the re-establishment of large-scale European search-and-rescue operations, including the creation of a European sea search-and-rescue corps, with the sole mandate of saving lives”.
She called for this to be supplemented by “a coherent strategy for safe and regular pathways, including humanitarian corridors, resettlement programmes and legal entry routes”.
These are binding moral and legal obligations under national and European human rights law, Mrs Zampa recalled, concluding: “The time has come for Europe to change course. We must replace indifference with responsibility and fear with solidarity. Every life lost at sea is a reminder that we can and must do better”. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)