Migrant deaths may shame Europe over Mediterranean moat

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By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The outrage Europe's leaders face over the deaths of hundreds of refugees trying to reach its shores may force a shift in a policy critics decry as letting people drown to deter others in desperate need. The moat that the Mediterranean forms between Fortress Europe and less fortunate neighbors may become slightly less forbidding, even if the focus will still be to discourage the crossing in ways other than raising the risk of dying at sea. Scrambling to respond to the deaths of up to 700 people on a fishing boat making for Italy from Libya, EU foreign ministers meet on Monday, and government leaders, some of whom are already calling for change, may also gather soon.. Yet they must grapple with a dilemma that prompted them to scale back a rescue operation in October on fears it had, in the words of the German interior minister, become "a bridge to Europe" for hundreds of thousands fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.




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