World

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday started committing new resources to save lives in the Mediterranean at an emergency summit convened after hundreds of migrants drowned in the space of a few days, and were discussing laying the ground for military action against traffickers.

"First and foremost now, we have to save lives and take the right measures to do so," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she arrived.

Officials said the 28 nations were closing in more than doubling the finances for the EU's border operation that patrols the Mediterranean and could be called on for emergency rescues. It currently stands at 2.9 million euros ($3.1 million) a month.

Leaders were also expected to assign EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to line up the options that would allow EU military to strike against the boats used by traffickers.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the summit was continuing, said diplomatic preparation for military action would likely take a couple of months, putting off talk of immediate action against the traffickers.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would contribute the navy's flagship, HMS Bulwark, along with three helicopters and two border patrol ships to the EU effort. "As the country in Europe with the biggest defence budget we can make a real contribution," he said, but added that this would not include accepting a share of the refugees.

German army sources told the DPA news agency Berlin would offer to send the troop supply ship "Berlin" as well as frigates "Karlsruhe" and "Hessen" towards Italy. The ships currently participate in the anti-piracy operation Atalanta at the Horn of Africa and could be in the Mediterranean within five days.

Belgium and Ireland each said they stood ready to commit a navy ship.

The task ahead is huge, with more than 10,000 migrants plucked from seas between Italy and Libya just over the last week, fleeing poverty and conflict.

For several years, EU leaders have done little more than deplore the rising death toll and mark tragedies with moments of silence and wreaths instead of fundamental action. When Libya disintegrated politically after the overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Europe failed to take forceful action.

"Right now it's a question of fixing yesterday's errors," said French President Francois Hollande.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte insisted that Europe should not take the brunt of blame. "We ask that Africa, the source of the problem, also collectively takes up its responsibility," Rutte said. "Last time I checked Libya was in Africa, not Europe."

Martin Schulz, president of the European parliament, said the EU had not moved in decades on its migrant policies.

"For 20 years, the European Parliament has been calling for a truly European asylum and migration policy," Schulz said. "I could still deliver the same speech, I delivered 20 years ago. Sadly and tragically."

Even optimists say any emergency measures agreed at Thursday's summit would not fully stem the tide of rickety ships crossing the Mediterranean.

"Europe is declaring war on smugglers," said the EU's top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who was in Malta to attend the funeral of 24 migrants who perished at sea.

So far, that has been a halfhearted skirmish, lamented Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the EU parliament's liberal ALDE group.

He complained the EU border operation Frontex had only two helicopters and seven ships in the Mediterranean. "We need a multitude out there," he said.

The draft statement also called for "a first voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering at least 5,000 places to persons qualifying for protection”.

That resettlement plan would amount to about half of the number which arrived in just the last week and a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands likely to arrive this year.

Here too a continental rift was already obvious, with countries like Germany, Sweden, France and Italy dealing with a disproportionate number of asylum requests while many eastern and Baltic member states hardly take any. Five of the 28 member states are handling almost 70 per cent of the migrants coming in.

Cameron, two weeks away from a national election in which immigration is a major issue, said Britain was not in the front line to take more migrants. British vessels would take migrants "to the nearest safe country, mostly likely Italy", he said.

In a joint statement, the UN's top refugee and migration officials called for an EU-wide resettlement plan and for beefing up the capacity of front-line countries Greece, Italy and Malta to receive more migrants.

ROME — European Union leaders head into a summit on the Mediterranean migrant crisis on Thursday under pressure to act after survivors laid bare the full horror of last weekend's catastrophic shipwreck.

Allegations of callous disregard for African, Asian and Arab lives are pushing Europe's bosses to come up with a concrete response to a disaster in which 800 people are feared to have died off Libya.

The vast majority of those on board were locked in the hold or the middle deck of the 20-metre boat when it capsized in the early hours of Sunday following a collision with a Portuguese cargo ship responding to its distress signal.

Only 28 survivors and 24 bodies were recovered and the lucky few say there were hundreds on board, spread over three levels.

"Those who had the least money were stuffed into the hold at the bottom, and locked inside," according to a Bangladeshi teenager identified as Abdirizzak.

When the first collision happened in pitch darkness, scenes of pure terror ensued, he told Italy's Corriere della Sera.

"Everyone was screaming, pushing, punching, elbowing — terrified. From below we could hear those who were locked in shouting 'Help, Help!'

"I don't know how but somehow we managed to swim outside just in time before the boat went down."

Illegal confinement 

Another Bangladeshi survivor said the migrant boat had hit the Portuguese container ship three times.

"People panicked — they all ran to the other side of the deck. That's what tipped us over," 17-year-old Riajul was quoted as saying by Britain's The Daily Telegraph.

"Most of the other migrants were African and they didn't know how to swim. I did and that's why I survived.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania said they had asked a judge to charge the boat's Tunisian captain with illegal confinement as well as culpable homicide, causing a shipwreck and aiding illegal immigration.

The skipper, Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, is alleged to have been drinking and smoking hashish while steering the boat. Crew member and Syrian national Mahmud Bikhit, 25, is also in custody. A judge has until Friday to make a decision on formal charges.

The exact number and breakdown of the victims may never be known as the wreck sank in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean.

On a day when a further 1,106 migrants landed on Italy's shores after being picked up at sea by the coastguard, parliament observed a one-minute silence in memory of Sunday's disaster.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi urged the EU and the UN to set up operations in African countries south of Libya to help stem the flow of migrants heading for Europe.

Africa camps? 

"We have to go to the root [of the problem] and discourage these men and women from leaving their countries," Renzi said, naming Niger and Sudan as states where the EU could intervene in collaboration with UN agencies.

"Fighting people trafficking means fighting the slave traders of the 21st century. It is not only a question of security and terrorism — it is about human dignity," Renzi told deputies.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has said the EU should be looking at building massive refugee camps in North Africa to shelter would-be migrants and refugees.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is reportedly ready to offer the services of a Royal Navy warship which could seek to prevent migrant boats from leaving Libya. But experts question whether such action, modelled on Australia's approach to its migrant crisis, could be done without UN authorisation.

EU governments have already agreed to double the resources available to a maritime border patrol mission, but that has been attacked as too little, too late by refugee and rights groups.

Sunday's disaster was the worst in a series of migrant shipwrecks that have claimed more than 1,750 lives this year — 30 times higher than the same period in 2014 — and nearly 5,000 since the start of last year.

If current trends continue, there could be 30,000 deaths at sea this year and Italy will have to process 200,000 migrants landing on its soil, according to projections by aid groups.

Italian officials believe there could be up to one million refugees from Syria, Eritrea and sub-Saharan Africa already in Libya hoping to board boats.

Other ideas up for discussion at the summit on Thursday include trying to capture or destroy people-smuggling boats and a pilot scheme for the fast-track return of migrants to their home countries.

TOKYO — Japanese authorities said they were investigating after a small drone laced with traces of radiation was found Wednesday on the roof of the prime minister's office, sparking concerns about drones and their possible use for terrorist attacks.

No injuries or damage were reported from the incident, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Indonesia to attend an Asian-African summit.

Police said it was not immediately known who was responsible for the drone. They were investigating the possibility it had crashed during a flight.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said a drone landing at the prime minister's office was a wake-up call to problems caused by the unmanned aerial devices, including possible terrorist attacks when Japan hosts a Group of Seven summit next year, as well as the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

"There is a possibility that drones might be used for terrorist attacks," Suga told a regular news conference. "Taking into consideration the latest incident, we will review drone use and measures for possible terrorist attacks using drones. We'll do our utmost to prevent terrorist attacks."

It was not clear when the drone landed. Officials at the prime minister's office, located in central Tokyo, said they rarely go up to the roof, which is also used as a heliport in case of an emergency. News reports said the drone was found by an official who was taking new employees on a tour of the prime minister's office.

What was initially considered only a mishap turned eerie when investigators detected small traces of radiation from the drone, which police said were not levels harmful to humans. TV video showed several unformed policemen without hazmat suits carrying a blue plastic box containing the drone for further examination.

Video from public television broadcaster NHK earlier showed dozens of police officers and officials around the drone, which was covered by a blue tarp.

The drone was about 50 centimetres in diameter and had four propellers, carrying a small camera and a plastic bottle with unidentified content inside, according to Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. It said the bottle is believed to be the source of radioactive cesium contamination. The drone was also decorated with a symbol that warns of radioactive material, according to NHK.

Small drones are becoming increasingly popular in Japan and are often used for performances, aerial filming and other purposes, but have been raising safety concerns.

In the United States in January, a wayward drone flown by an off-duty intelligence employee crashed on the White House grounds, raising questions over how commercial and consumer drones can be used safely in the US.

Japanese aviation laws have no restrictions for flying unmanned equipment at or below 250 meters above ground except for flight routes.

CATANIA, Italy — Prosecutors blamed the Tunisian captain of a fishing boat for causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants locked below decks when his vessel capsised in the Mediterranean, in the weekend shipwreck that has shocked Europe.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, arrested under suspicion of multiple homicide, had steered his severely overloaded boat into a collision with a merchant ship that was coming to its rescue.

Only 28 survivors have been brought to Italy from the hundreds of mainly African and Bangladeshi migrants on board. Police have quoted the survivors giving death tolls that range from 400 to 950 in what appears to have been the worst disaster ever among migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe.

So few survived because most of the migrants on board, including women and children, had been locked in the hold and lower decks of the three-deck fishing boat, said Catania chief prosecutor Giovanni Salvi.

That also made it impossible so far to reach the bodies and verify the toll.

The captain has been arrested on suspicion of multiple homicide and people-smuggling, and he and his 25-year-old Syrian first mate, Mahmud Bikhit, are also suspected of causing a shipwreck. It was not immediately possible to reach lawyers representing them for comment.

Under Italian law, prosecutors outline the charges they believe a defendant should face before the defendant is formally charged by a judge.

Both men are in police custody, while investigations continue, the prosecutors' office said.

The disaster comes after weeks of a dramatic rise in deaths among migrants packed into rickety vessels to cross the Mediterranean. Nearly 1,800 have drowned so far this year, compared to fewer than 100 deaths by the end of April last year, a period when a similar number attempted the crossing.

That has put new pressure for action on European leaders who restricted funding for naval operations on the argument that rescuing migrants lures more to cross. The policy, still backed by some EU countries, appears to have made the voyage far deadlier without reducing the numbers attempting it.

The number of migrants attempting the dangerous journey usually peaks in the late spring and summer months, adding to the urgency.

The EU proposed on Monday doubling the size of its small naval mission in the area, which replaced a far larger Italian operation cancelled last year. It has summoned leaders of its countries to an emergency summit on Thursday.

The Italian coast guard said 638 migrants were rescued from rubber dinghies on Monday in six separate operations and merchant ships and coast guard patrol boats were assisting a fishing boat carrying migrants some 128km off the south eastern coast of Calabria, in mainland Italy.

Lawlessness in Libya, where most of the migrant boats originate, has made it difficult to prevent traffickers from packing thousands of people fleeing poverty or war into unsafe fishing boats and rubber dinghies.

The prosecutors' office said it was possible that investigators would try to recover the wreck of the vessel, which sank around 70 nautical miles off the Libyan coast at around midnight between Saturday and Sunday.

According to the prosecutors, the fishing boat was so heavily overloaded that it could not be manoeuvred properly. The captain crashed it into the King Jacob, a Portuguese merchant vessel that had approached to give aid.

As around 100 migrants on deck rushed to one side, the boat capsised and sank.

The Catania prosecutors office said no blame was attached to the merchant ship.

TOKYO — Japan's state-of-the-art maglev train clocked a new world speed record Tuesday in a test run near Mount Fuji, smashing through the 600 kilometre per hour mark, as Tokyo races to sell the technology abroad.

The seven-car maglev train — short for "magnetic levitation" — hit a top speed of 603 kilometres an hour, and managed nearly 11 seconds at over 600kph, operator Central Japan Railway said.

The new record came less than a week after the company recorded a top speed of 590 kph, breaking its own 2003 record of 581 kph.

The maglev hovers 10 centimetres above the tracks and is propelled by electrically charged magnets.

About two hundred train buffs gathered to Tuesday's record-setting run, with the crowd cheering as the train broke through 600 kph per hour.

"It gave me chills. I really want to ride on the train," an elderly woman told public broadcaster NHK as the carriage rocketed past her.

"It's like I witnessed a new page in history."

An AFP reporter who previously rode on the super-speed train said the experience was like taking off in a plane, with the feeling of g-force gathering as the speedometer is pushed ever higher.

"The faster the train runs, the more stable it becomes — I think the quality of the train ride has improved," Yasukazu Endo, who heads the maglev test centre southwest of Tokyo, told reporters Tuesday.

JR Central wants to have a train in service in 2027, plying the route between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya, a distance of 286 kilometres.

The service, which would run at a top speed of 500 kph, is expected to connect the two cities in only 40 minutes, less than half the present journey time in Japan's already speedy bullet trains.

'Great benefits' 

By 2045, maglev trains are expected to link Tokyo and Osaka in just one hour and seven minutes, slashing the journey time in half.

However, construction costs for the dedicated lines are astronomical — estimated at nearly $100 billion just for the stretch to Nagoya, with more than 80 per cent of the route expected to go through costly tunnels.

Japan is looking to sell its shinkansen bullet and maglev train systems overseas, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acting as a travelling salesman in his bid to revive the Japanese economy partly through infrastructure exports.

He is due in the United States this weekend, where he will be touting the technology for a high-speed rail link between New York and Washington.

Last year, Abe took US ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy on a test ride.

"This technology is something that will bring great benefits to Japan and hopefully the United States one day," Kennedy said after the ride.

The maglev train is a contender for US President Barack Obama's multibillion-dollar national high-speed rail project.

Abe said Japan would not charge licensing fees in the US for the train, a strong incentive for Washington to select the system for a high-speed rail line between Washington DC and Baltimore.

The proposed 60-kilometre link will represent the first phase in the US government's plan to connect the capital and Boston.

Japan started its study on the maglev train system as a national project in 1962, and succeeded in running at a speed of 60 kph a decade later.

CATANIA, Italy/LUXEMBOURG — EU foreign ministers met on Monday under pressure to produce more than words to save migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, as the first bodies were brought on shore of hundreds feared killed in a shipwreck while trying to reach Europe.

Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said as many as 900 people may have died off the coast of Libya when a large boat capsised, by far the highest death toll in modern times among migrants trafficked in rickety vessels across the Mediterranean.

Italy and Malta were working to rescue another two migrant boats with around 400 people off the coast of Libya on Monday. Hundreds of kilometres to the east, coast guards were struggling to save scores of migrants from another vessel destroyed after running aground off the Greek island of Rhodes.

Greek coast guards said at least three people were killed there. Television pictures showed survivors clinging to floating debris while rescuers pulled them from the waves.

Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi compared the smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean to the African slave trade of 300-400 years ago.

"When we say we are in the presence of slavery we are not using the word just for effect," he told a news conference. "The point is that we can't accept this kind of trade in human lives."

European officials are struggling to come up with a policy to respond more humanely to an exodus of migrants travelling by sea from Africa and Asia to Europe, without worsening the crisis by encouraging more to leave.

"Search and rescue alone is not a silver bullet," said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere. "If you just organise search and rescue, criminals who get the refugees on board will send more boats."

But a sharp reduction in European naval search and rescue efforts since last year appears to have made the voyage far more perilous, increasing pressure on politicians to soften their hearts.

Last year Italy called off its naval operation in the southern Mediterranean, known as "Mare Nostrum", because of its cost and domestic opposition to sea rescues that encourage more migration. It was replaced in November by a far smaller and less ambitious EU mission with a third of the budget.

"This is a humanitarian emergency that involves us all," the International Organisation for Migration's (IOM) Italy Director Federico Soda said, calling for a mission equivalent to the Italian operation to be relaunched immediately.

If the toll is confirmed in Sunday's tragedy, as many as 1,800 migrants will have died so far trying to cross the Mediterranean since the start of this year. The IOM estimates around 21,000 made the voyage successfully.

In comparison, by the end of April last year, fewer than 100 had died out of 26,000 who crossed.

The number of migrants normally surges in the summer, meaning far greater numbers are likely to attempt the voyage in coming months. In total last year 174,000 made the journey successfully and around 3,200 died.

The IOM estimates hundreds of thousands of people could be planning to attempt the crossing from Libya, now in a lawless state with two competing governments at war with each other and incapable of policing people-smuggling gangs.

Reality hits us in the face

"The reputation of Europe is at stake," said Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. "I have been saying for weeks and months that Europe has to do more, now unfortunately the reality has hit us in the face."

The vessel overturned and sank off the coast of Libya on Sunday when passengers rushed to one side to attract attention from a passing merchant ship. A Bangladeshi survivor told police there had been 950 passengers onboard, according to the IOM.

In the Maltese capital Valletta, coast-guard officers brought ashore the 24 corpses found so far. Wearing white protective suits, they carried the victims in body-bags off the Italian ship Gregoretti and deposited them in hearses as survivors looked on from the deck.

Twenty-eight survivors rescued so far will be taken on the same boat to the Sicilian Port of Catania.

In Greece more than 90 people were rescued from the boat wrecked off the coast of Rhodes: "We have recovered three bodies so far — that of a man, a woman and a child," a coast guard official said.

Europe's politicians face criticism from aid and human rights groups that they have been abandoning those in need of help to pander to anti-immigrant sentiment among the electorates in their home countries.

European foreign ministers held a moment of silence at the start of their meeting in Luxembourg.

However there are differing views among them about what needs to be done, from ramping up costly search and rescue operations to trying to intervene in Libya. Renzi said a military operation in Libya was not on the table.

Malta's Muscat said the United Nations should mandate a force to intervene directly in Libya to disrupt or attack people-traffickers and stop boats from setting off.

France called for a bigger search and rescue at sea. Sweden said it would send its own coast guards if the EU did not do more.

Lawlessness in Libya has made it almost impossible to police criminal gangs who can charge thousands of dollars to bring mainly sub-Saharan Africans to Europe.

Only last week around 400 migrants were reported to have died attempting to reach Italy from Libya when their boat capsised.

Northern European Union countries have so far largely left rescue operations to southern states such as Italy. According to the IOM, Italian coast guards have rescued 10,000 migrants in the Mediterranean in the past few days.

YAVORIV, Ukraine — US paratroopers launched a training mission Monday for Ukrainian government forces who will fight pro-Russian separatists in the east, angering Moscow as the deadly conflict rumbles on.

President Petro Poroshenko welcomed troops from the US 173rd Airborne Brigade for Operation Fearless Guardian in a rain-soaked ceremony at a military base in Yavoriv, western Ukraine.

"We are the eyewitnesses and direct participants in forming the new Ukrainian military, which like the phoenix is returning after a long time," Poroshenko told the assembled troops.

Officials said some 300 US troops will train 900 members of Ukraine's National Guard, which is deployed in the east where heavy arms fire continues despite a February ceasefire.

US Army Major Michael Weisman told AFP the US mission would provide training in individual and medical skills and defence manoeuvres, with the kind of weapons already in use by the Ukrainian forces such as AK-47 assault rifles.

As the US troops arrived in Ukraine last week, Russia warned the move could "destabilise" the ex-Soviet country, where the conflict has killed more than 6,000 people in the past year.

The United States is one of Ukraine's biggest backers in a conflict that has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Poroshenko called the exercises the first of their kind and "one of the biggest and most important demonstrations of solidarity" between his pro-Western government and its US allies.

"The circumstances under which these exercises are being held are also unique," he added, referring to the conflict in the east.

Washington has sent $75 million (70 million euros) worth of non-lethal military aid to Kiev, but has so far held off from supplying weapons.

"We are not providing weapons," Weisman told AFP. "What we are merely doing is getting them better with theirs."

Kiev and the West have cited growing evidence that Russia is arming separatists who control parts of eastern Ukraine and sending troops to fight alongside them, but Russia has repeatedly denied this.

Moscow accuses the United States of backing the uprising that preceded the ousting of former pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych in February last year. Moscow subsequently annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Shooting practice 

US troops have trained with Ukrainian forces in the past, but it is the first time Washington has trained members of Ukraine's recently re-formed National Guard.

The US troops "are going to teach us all they know, from individual preparation to more difficult things such as shooting, communication between units and planning operations", said Oleksandr Poroniuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army.

Ukraine had asked the United States to send the training mission according to an article published by the US army on April 11.

"This training will help them defend their borders and their sovereignty," it quoted brigade planning officer Captain Ashish Patel as saying.

A ground convoy drove from the US brigade's base in northern Italy to the Ukrainian military zone in Yavoriv near the Polish border, with vehicles and equipment.

Both countries stressed the equipment was for use by the US brigade in the training and is not to be issued to Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian army spokesman Andriy Lysenko said last week the training will include "how to give first aid, react to shelling and find out the positions of militants".

Britain has also deployed personnel to Ukraine to train government forces, in a mission that could reportedly involve up to 75 trainers at a time. Canada announced last week it would also send 200 trainers in the summer.

PRETORIA — South Africa on Sunday vowed to hunt down those behind a wave of attacks targeting immigrants, saying 307 people had been arrested over violence that has left at least seven people dead.

The government stepped up its response to unrest in Johannesburg and the eastern coastal city of Durban, with Home Minister Malusi Gigaba resolving to end "all acts that seek to plunge our country into anarchy".

Rioting and looting over the last two weeks have exposed tensions between South Africans and immigrants from across the continent, including Zimbabwe, Somalia, Ethiopia and Malawi.

President Jacob Zuma on Saturday cancelled a state visit to Indonesia to deal with surge in violence, and pleaded with foreigners to stay in South Africa.

Heightening public concern over the attacks, the Sunday Times published front-page pictures of a Mozambican man being stabbed to death in broad daylight in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra.

The photographs showed Emmanuel Sithole being attacked early Saturday by a man in jeans wielding a knife.

Sithole was taken to hospital but died of his wounds, the paper reported.

"Perpetrators are being arrested, charged and prosecuted," Gigaba told a press conference in Pretoria.

"So far 307 suspects have been arrested in connection with attacks on foreign nationals and public violence.

"We want to issue a stern warning to those who lend themselves to acts of public violence. We will find you — and you will be dealt with to the full might of the law."

Sporadic violence erupted again overnight in Johannesburg and Durban, where an AFP photographer said that one Zimbabwean's house had been petrol-bombed and his two cars torched.

The spate of attacks has revived memories of xenophobic bloodshed in 2008, when 62 people were killed in Johannesburg's townships, shaking South Africa's post-apartheid image as a "rainbow nation" of different ethnic groups.

Repatriation plans 

Immigrants are often the focus for anger among South Africans hit by a chronic job shortage and the limited progress made by many poor blacks since white-minority rule ended in 1994.

Regional relations have been strained by the unrest, with Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique organising for some worried citizens to return home.

Buses to Malawi were due to leave on Sunday, and Zimbabwe said about 700 citizens were expected to be ferried out by bus within days.

Zimbabwe has about one million mostly-illegal immigrants in South Africa, many of them working in the service sector, on construction sites and as casual labour.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said most victims of the xenophobic attacks were refugees forced to leave their own countries due to war and persecution.

It said 5,000 migrants had sought refuge in makeshift camps, but local authorities said the figure was lower.

Zuma on Saturday travelled to Durban to visit one camp, where he faced a hostile reception from the crowd, which yelled "go home, go home" and "too late, too late".

He vowed to end the unrest and sought to assure the crowd there was a place for foreigners in South Africa.

"Even those who want to go home, they must know that when we have stopped the violence they are welcome to come back," Zuma said.

The violence has been largely blamed on a speech last month by King Goodwill Zwelithini, traditional leader of the Zulus, in which he blamed foreigners for South Africa's high crime rate and said they must "take their bags and go".

He has since said his words were misinterpreted.

South Africa's economy grew by just 1.5 per cent last year and unemployment is at around 25 per cent — soaring to over 50 per cent among young people.

Gigaba stressed that foreign companies were still welcome to invest in South Africa.

"Everything is being done to restore peace and order," he said.

ROME — Up to 700 people were feared drowned Sunday after an overcrowded boat smuggling them to Europe capsized off Libya in the latest and deadliest in a long list of migrant disasters in the Mediterranean.

Italy's coastguard, which was coordinating the search for survivors and bodies, said only 28 people had survived a wreck that triggered fresh calls from Pope Francis and others for European leaders to act over what many see as an avoidable loss of life.

Survivors' testimonies suggested there had been about 700 people on board the 20-metre fishing boat when it keeled over in darkness overnight, officials said.

"It seems we are looking at the worst massacre ever seen in the Mediterranean," UNHCR spokeswoman Carlotta Sami said.

The European Union announced an emergency meeting of foreign and interior ministers to discuss what Amnesty International blasted as a predictable "man-made tragedy".

Coastal authorities in Italy and Malta picked up a distress signal from the stricken vessel around midnight (2200 GMT) on Saturday, when it was about 126km off the Libyan coast and 177km south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

The Italian coastguard instructed a nearby merchant ship to provide assistance and it was when the Portuguese-registered King Jacob arrived at the scene that the fishing boat capsized, most likely as a result of the terrified passengers stampeding to one side in their desperation to get off, the UNHCR's Sami said.

A total of 17 boats scoured the area for survivors on Sunday but only 24 bodies had been recovered by late afternoon, the coastguard said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, a former Italian foreign minister, said Sunday's events were a stain on Europe's conscience.

"We have said too many times 'never again'. Now is time for the European Union as such to tackle these tragedies without delay."

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, added: "This disaster confirms how urgent it is to restore a robust rescue-at-sea operation and establish credible legal avenues to reach Europe. Otherwise people seeking safety will continue to perish at sea."

The disaster was the latest in a growing catalogue of mass drownings of migrants attempting to reach Europe on overcrowded, unseaworthy boats run by people smugglers who are able to operate out of Libya with impunity because of the chaos engulfing the north African state.

The most serious incident prior to Sunday occurred off Malta in September 2014. An estimated 500 migrants drowned in a shipwreck caused by traffickers deliberately ramming the boat in an attempt to force the people on board onto another, smaller vessel.

In October 2013, more than 360 Africans perished when the tiny fishing boat they were crammed onto caught fire within sight of the coast of Lampedusa.

That horrific tragedy was described at the time as a wake-up call to the world but 18 months later there is no sign of a let-up in the numbers attempting the perilous crossing in search of a better life in Europe.

The latest disaster comes after a week in which two other migrant shipwrecks left an estimated 450 people dead.

If the worst fears about Sunday's tragedy are confirmed, it will take the death toll since the start of 2015 to more than 1,600.

More than 11,000 other would-be immigrants have been rescued since the middle of last week and current trends suggest last year's total of 170,000 migrants landing in Italy is likely to be exceeded in 2015.

Pope Francis said European Union leaders must act.

"These are men and women like us, brothers seeking a better life," he said in his weekly address to the Roman Catholic faithful in St Peter's square, urging leaders to "act decisively and quickly to stop these tragedies from recurring”.

Amnesty's John Dalhuisen called Sunday's accident a "man-made tragedy of appalling proportions”.

"These latest deaths at sea come as a shock, but not a surprise."

Amnesty is among NGOs calling for the restoration of an Italian navy search-and-rescue operation known as Mare Nostrum which was suspended at the end of last year.

Italy scaled back the mission after failing to persuade its European partners to help meet its operating costs of nine million euros ($9.7 million) a month amid divisions over whether the mission was unintentionally encouraging migrants to attempt the crossing.

Mare Nostrum has been replaced by a much smaller EU-run operation called Triton which has only a fraction of the specialist assets and manpower.

KABUL — Daesh terror group claimed to have carried out a deadly suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan Saturday that killed at least 33 people and injured more than 100, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said, in what, if verified, would be the first major attack claimed by the jihadist group in the country.

"Who claimed responsibility for horrific attack in Nangarhar today? The Taliban did not claim responsibility for the attack, Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack," President Ghani said on a visit to northeastern Badakhshan province.

A person purporting to be a Daesh spokesman said in a call to AFP that the group claimed responsibility for the bombing outside a bank in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.

An online posting allegedly from the group made the same claim, which could not be immediately verified.

"Thirty-three dead bodies and more than 100 wounded were brought to the hospital," Dr Najeebullah Kamawal, head of the provincial hospital, told AFP.

Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a provincial government spokesman, confirmed the attack — the deadliest since November.

"The explosion happened outside the bank when government employees and civilians were collecting their monthly salaries," he told AFP.

The UN gave a higher toll, saying 35 people had been killed.

President Ghani strongly condemned the attack, which saw children among those killed, his office said in a statement.

"Carrying out terrorist attacks in cities and public places are the most cowardly acts of terror by terrorists targeting innocent civilians," President Ghani said.

The scene of the attack showed the gruesome scale of the carnage with people lying in pools of blood and body parts scattered across the ground.

The bombing comes as Afghanistan braces for what is expected to be a bloody push by the Taliban at the start of the fighting season.

However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied responsibility.

The militants have stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets since Washington backpedalled on plans to shrink the US force in Afghanistan this year by nearly half.

The Taliban have seen defections to Daesh in recent months, with some insurgents voicing their disaffection with their one-eyed supreme leader Mullah Omar, who has not been seen since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The Afghan government has also raised the ominous prospect of Daesh making inroads into the country, though the group that has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq has never formally acknowledged having a presence in Afghanistan.