David Walker, bishop of Manchester, says it is unworthy for politicians to label displaced migrants as criminals, and country should take in fair share, urging the leaders to look on migrants with compassion, that Britain has a moral duty to accept refugees from conflicts in which it has participated. The death toll of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe last week grew to 1,700.  He said, he wants his country United Kingdom, to be governed by those who are prepared to look at the faces of the desperate, be it the desperation of the asylum seeker or of the food bank client, and to look at them with compassion. Despite the huge numbers of migrants heading north, only 5,000 resettlement places across Europe have been offered to refugees under an emergency summit crisis package agreed by EU leaders, with the rest sent back as irregular migrants under a new rapid-return programme coordinated by the EU’s border agency, Frontex.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other EU leaders repeated their promises to tackle the migration crisis and stop more Mediterranean deaths with greater funding. Austria has proposed setting up refugee centers in north African countries with the help of international agencies and despite their initial agreement, there would not be anything like that in Libya. The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot whose government introduced tough measures to turn back asylum-seeker’s boats, said that the European Union should follow suit, describing it as the only way to end deaths at sea. He also added that the European Union should follow their example.