The shame of Europe

“Call for help ignored” headlines Público, reporting that “61 migrants, among them children, died of hunger and thirst after calling for help in vain.” According to Britain’s Guardian, a boat that had left Tripoli on March 25 with 72 migrants on board drifted in the Mediterranean for 16 days, after engine failure, before finally returning to Libya. The Guardian reports that the survivors claimed to have been spotted by military planes and an aircraft carrier. “The North Atlantic Alliance [NATO] denied receiving any call, but the Italian Coast Guard admitted having been alerted,” adds Público. The French government, put on the spot by the Guardian, has “categorically denied the reports, written in the conditional tense,” writes the French daily *Libération*, adding that according to NATO “only one aircraft carrier was in the area at this date, the Italian vessel Garibaldi.” For Público, this case “shames Europe”. It is difficult to believe "the official denials [...] when the manoeuvring of Berlusconi and Sarkozy to seal their borders to African migrants (with the connivance of the European Commission) are well known.” Público is demanding an investigation, “because today no one knows the number of African victims of an exodus that should bring shame to Europe. [...] Maritime law, respect for human rights and even common sense require that all the castaways be rescued,” the paper concludes.