UN rights chief slams indifference over migrant deaths at sea

The U.N.'s human rights chief on Dec. 10 condemned rich nations for their indifference to waves of global migration, after new figures showed more than 3,400 people died in the Mediterranean this year trying to reach Europe.

"The lack of concern that we see in many countries for the suffering and exploitation of such desperate people is deeply shocking," U.N. High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said at the start of talks on the issue in Geneva.

He added: "Rich countries must not become gated communities, their people averting their eyes from the bloodstains in the driveway."      

A record 348,000 migrants and refugees took to leaky boats this year in search of a better life in Europe, South-East Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East, 4,272 of them dying in the process, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Most of these were in the Mediterranean, where more than 207,000 made the crossing since January, almost three times the previous high of 70,000 during the Libyan civil war in 2011. A record 3,419 lost their lives.

For the first time in several decades, almost half of those hoping to make it to Europe are refugees rather than economic migrants, including 60,051 Syrians fleeing their country's war and 34,561 Eritreans fleeing the regime.

Others are being driven by lack of jobs, natural disasters and food and water shortages, and a growing number of women, children and elderly people are on board.

"If entire families are risking their lives at sea today, it's because they have already lost everything else and see no other option to find safety," said the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

"And as they get on these boats, more and more of them drown on the way, some...