Refugee and Migrant Deaths Growing in Central Mediterranean 

GENEVA - U.N. agencies are reporting a sharp rise in deaths across the Central Mediterranean among refugees and migrants fleeing conflict, persecution and economic hardship in their home countries.   So far this year, say U.N. agencies, at least 500 people have lost their lives at sea trying to reach Europe via the dangerous Central Mediterranean route.   

This is compared to 150 sea fatalities in the same period last year.    An estimated 130 people died in a shipwreck off the Libyan coast last month.  A report by the International Organization for Migration blamed their deaths on the failure of maritime rescue vessels to respond to their calls of distress.  A spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, Carlotta Sami, says fortunately the distress calls of some 1,500 others who recently made this perilous journey were heeded.   She says more than 1,000 disembarked in the port of Trapani in Sicily on May 1 following rescue by the Italian Coast Guard.