Rich Smuggling Trade Fuels Deadly Migration Across Mediterranean

At WSJ, "Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat":

The deaths of more than 1,000 Italy-bound migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in the last week are the product of a multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias, tribesmen and bandits, law-enforcement officials and migrant-aid groups say.

Authorities in the European Union on Monday pledged to step up efforts to crack down on a well-oiled and increasingly brazen business of putting desperate people on rickety boats and setting them afloat on the deadliest migrant route in the world. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for international support “to fight against these traffickers of human beings, this new slavery of the 21st century.”

Yeah, it's bad.

More at London's Daily Mail, "Captain arrested over Mediterranean migrant disaster: Two charged with 'multiple manslaughter' when they step on to Italian soil with survivors - as EU vows to 'capture and destroy' human traffickers' boats."

Also at the Guardian UK, "EU ministers meet for crisis talks after hundreds of migrants drown in Mediterranean."