People classified as
economic migrants rather than refugees, Europe is poised to provide more money
to help solve conflicts and poverty in Africa; a summit beginning in Malta
today brings together representatives from Africa and the EU.
About 50 leaders will try
and find a solution to the crisis, including countries where many of the
refugees and migrants originate from such as Eritrea, Niger, Ethiopia, Somalia,
and Sudan.
The meeting on the small
Mediterranean island, which has seen thousands of people making the perilous
crossing by boat, comes as a group of Greek divers spoke of the "dark
day" they pulled the bodies of 11 women and children from the wreck of a
migrant boat.
Speaking to the Maltese
parliament ahead of the summit, European Council President Donald Tusk said the
crisis "will challenge and change the EU as fundamentally as any treaty
amendment, national election or monetary crisis".
He added that EU leaders
must find a way of better managing the "intense migratory pressures."
This year 1.2m people
entered the EU illegally.
Slovenia, one of the
countries that is on the frontline of the crisis, has started building a
barbed-wire fence on its border with Croatia.
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