Europe pledges more aid after deadly shipwreck

BRUSSELS — The European Union pledged to crack down on human trafficking, step up rescue missions and better share the burden of resettling migrants after a boat carrying refugees capsized in the Mediterranean Sea over the weekend, killing an estimated 700 people.

Hundreds fleeing through conflict-racked Libya were feared drowned in the weekend disaster, which prompted EU leaders to call a summit Thursday to speed up a 10-point migration-management plan that was due to be unveiled in May.

Battles over funding and burden-sharing look set to unfold at the summit, as economically stretched southern European countries complain of being overwhelmed with migrants while northern governments contend with a backlash against letting in more foreigners.

“I do not expect any quick-fix solutions to the root causes of migration because there are none,” EU President Donald Tusk said Monday in a video announc- ing the summit. “But I do expect,” he went on, that the summit will weigh “options for immediate action.”

Turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa swelled the number of applicants for asylum in the 28-nation EU by 44 percent to 626,065 in 2014, the most since 1992 when Yugoslavia was breaking apart, according to EU data. Some 122,790 people fleeing Syria’s civil war found their way across the Mediterranean.

More than 36,000 asylumseekers and migrants have hazarded the journey to southern Europe so far this year, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The weekend tragedy, if the numbers are confirmed, would bring the death toll to about 1,600 so far in 2015, compared with 3,500 in 2014, the office said in a statement.

In the latest incident, the U.N. agency quoted Maltese authorities as saying 700 people were on board when the vessel left the Libyan port of Zuara. “The control of the sea ... can’t be dealt with simply by playing hideand-seek with the people smugglers ... ,” Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.