GENEVA, June 27 (Xinhua) -- UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) appealed to European Union (EU) member states on Wednesday to take region-wide action to reduce the needless loss of life at sea.
According to the two UN agencies, almost 1,000 refugees and migrants have perished while being smuggled across the Mediterranean Sea this year.
UNHCR and IOM believe a new collaborative approach is needed to make disembarkation of people rescued at sea more predictable and manageable.
This should build on the ongoing collaboration between the EU, UN and African Union, they said.
In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, the two agencies said that people rescued in international waters should be quickly brought ashore to safe locations in the EU, and potentially elsewhere too.
"The approach needs to be complemented by more resettlement places, family reunification and other solutions within the EU, and increased support to countries where people are disembarked," the statement said.
It added that in the past 10 days, vessels on the Mediterranean Sea carrying rescued refugees and other migrants were unable to dock because of political deadlock in Europe.
"Upholding the right to asylum in EU member states is absolutely crucial," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
"Denying rescue, or shifting responsibility for asylum elsewhere is completely unacceptable. We need countries to come together and chart a new way forward," he noted.
IOM's director general William Lacy Swing said the priority is saving the lives of all those who have been victimized by migrant smugglers who put them into unsafe rafts on the high seas.
Sea arrivals of refugees and migrants peaked in 2015 when more than a million desperate people crossed the Mediterranean to Europe and almost 5,000 died in trying to make the journey.
UN figures showed that three years on, arrivals are back at pre-2014 levels and are dropping towards their long-term historic averages.
So far this year, some 42,000 have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, compared with 85,000 during the same period last year.
IOM and UNHCR urged European states to use Thursday's EU summit to find a new and united approach to the situation of Mediterranean arrivals. The approach should incorporate the shared needs of all countries to manage their borders and migration policies while simultaneously upholding European and international asylum standards.
