More than 1.2 million Arab, African and Asian migrants fleeing war and poverty have streamed into the European Union since the start of past year.
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On Monday, EU foreign ministers gave the green light to expand Operation Sophia’s mandate to include training for the Libyan coastguard service.
At the end of March, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian estimated that around 800,000 migrants were waiting to head for Europe from Libya.
The coastguard has coordinated the rescue of around 900 migrants in seven different operations on Thursday.
“The smuggling networks operate from Libya, and they extend through Africa. We can provide training, we can provide equipment”.
“The Libyan coastguard is the basis on which we have to build security in the coastal waters of Libya”, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters.
“Shortly afterwards the boat capsized due to overcrowding and instability due to the high humber of people on board”, the navy said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Europeans now have what they asked for, namely a unity government ruling from the capital”, said Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Just 480 kilometres (300 miles) from Europe’s coast, Libya’s slide into anarchy over the past five years has made it an outpost for Islamic State militants and a staging post for sub-Saharan African migrants aided by traffickers.
“We agreed that the alliance can do more in the Mediterranean”, Jens Stoltennberg, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief, said, referring to surveillance and interception of boats by Active Endeavour, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation counter-terrorism operation in the region created after 9/11.
The navy said at least 550 people had been pulled to safety but added that the rescue operation was still underway and that the death toll could rise.
The training efforts would likely begin on European Union naval ships in global waters, which, she said, “will be very important to control Libya’s territorial waters, together with our Libyan partners, as well as to control the migrant influx”.
According to coastguard, an Irish navy boat also rescued 100 more.
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Western powers are also working with Egypt to stop the movement of jihadist fighters and arms from Syria to Libya.
