AlHijjah 08, 1435, October 02, 2014, SPA -- Europe must react to the mounting deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean by easing migration policies, the UN refugee agency said Thursday ahead of the first anniversary of a shipwreck that killed hundreds of people off the Italian island of Lampedusa, dpa reported. "We are failing to heed the lessons from the terrible events of last October, and more and more refugees are drowning trying to reach safety," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said. About 165,000 people have crossed the sea so far this year, and more than 3,000 have died. The numbers have multiplied since 2013 when 60,000 people made the trip and 600 died during the entire year. Guterres urged European governments to open up safer migration paths by increasing quotas for resettling refugees in their countries as well as offering more visas for education, family reunifications and humanitarian grounds.
