Return to migrant sea op urged

(ANSA) - Vatican City, February 10 - Influential Catholic weekly magazine Famiglia Cristiana on Tuesday appealed for a return to Italy's humanitarian sea search and rescue operation Mare Nostrum, a day after 29 migrants were found frozen to death on board a boat off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. "Let's go back to Mare Nostrum, let's avoid further tragedies," said the periodical on its website amid concern over the ability to save lives of the smaller Triton operation run by the EU's border agency Frontex that replaced the Italian mission last November. "The latest deaths off Lampedusa have shown that the Triton operation is not enough to prevent new victims at sea," the magazine said.
    "The refugees continue to depart from African shores with or without rescue boats that intercept them in the Mediterranean," Famiglia Cristiana continued.
    "If we want to tackle the tragedy of migration we need to start from a fixed point: humanity, the duty to save men, women, elderly, children from death at sea. Everything else comes afterwards. Otherwise it is only dangerous demagogy." Tens of thousands of migrants were rescued at sea under the Mare Nostrum operation, which was launched in autumn 2013 in response to a double boat tragedy off Lampedusa in which over 300 migrants lost their lives. Supporters said it was necessary to guarantee the safety of people fleeing poverty and conflict at the mercy of unscrupulous traffickers and unseaworthy vessels, while critics claimed it merely invited more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing in search of a batter life in Europe.