EU leaders to restore rescue operations after migrant boat disaster

A migrant and a Maltese girl place candles on the shoreline rocks as they take part in a vigil to commemorate migrants who died at sea in Sliema, outside Valletta, April 22, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

"YOU MATTER"

In Valetta, capital of Malta, a memorial service was held for the 24 bodies recovered from Sunday's disaster, when a triple-deck fishing boat capsized and sank near Libya with hundreds of people trapped in its hold.

Only 28 people were rescued. The vast majority were locked below decks, their bodies never found. The captain has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of multiple homicide, people smuggling and causing a shipwreck.

A room in Valetta's Mater Dei Hospital morgue was blanketed with flowers sent mostly by local residents. A note attached to one bouquet read: "R.I.P. brothers and sisters, you matter".

"We proceeded out at sea with the hope of course to save as many people as we could but unfortunately we didn't arrive quite in time to save the migrants," said visibly moved Maltese Navy Lieutenant Mark Merceica, who attended the memorial.

"We were really disappointed and you could feel this through the entire crew, we were really hoping to arrive in time."

The EU has struggled for years to forge an effective joint strategy to handle migrants fleeing war and turmoil in Africa and the Middle East.

Many European politicians have acknowledged this week that last year's decision not to replace the Italian search and rescue operation was a mistake.

"There was a view that the presence of rescue ships encouraged people to risk the crossing," British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote in the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday. "That judgment now looks to have been wrong."