PARIS French President Francois Hollande called on Sunday for a meeting of EU ministers to step up rescue efforts for migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean, after as many as 700 were feared drowned off the Libyan coast overnight.
"If confirmed this would be the worst disaster of recent years in the Mediterranean," Hollande said on Canal+ television.
Some 24 bodies have so far been recovered after a fishing boat packed with migrants capsized south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Rescue and disaster prevention efforts will need "more boats, more over flights and a much more intense battle against people-trafficking," Hollande said.
Foreign and interior ministers should "meet very soon" to discuss an increased response, Hollande said, adding that he had telephoned Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in the wake of the tragedy.
(Reporting by Laurence Frost; editing by Clelia Oziel)
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