Up to 700 feared dead after migrant boat sinks off Libya

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By Antonio Denti PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - As many as 700 people were feared dead after a fishing boat packed with migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, in what may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis, officials said on Sunday. Twenty eight people were rescued and 24 bodies recovered from the 20 meter-long vessel, which sank around 70 miles from the Libyan coast, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the Italian coast guard said. The new deaths fueled calls for a stronger response from Europe to the increasingly deadly migrant crisis playing out in the Mediterranean. International aid groups and Italian authorities have criticized the European Union's "Triton" border protection operation, which recently replaced the more comprehensive Italian search-and-rescue mission "Mare Nostrum".




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