IOM Receives Distress Call from Sinking Boat with 300 Migrants

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says it has received a distress call from a sinking boat with 300 migrants in the Mediterranean.

Some 20 people are reported dead, according to a IOM spokesman said.

The caller said about three boats needed help in international waters.

EU ministers are due to meet in Luxembourg later on Monday to discuss the migrant crisis after hundreds of people drowned at the weekend after their boat sank off the coast of Libya.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has said Europe had a “moral duty” to act in the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.

“We have a political and moral duty to exercise our role. The Mediterranean is our sea and we have to act together as Europeans. It is also [in] our interest, [in
that] of our credibility; the European Union was built and is built around the protection of human rights, human dignity and the life of human people – we need to be consistent in that.”