REGGIO DE CALABRE:  Amnesty International accused the EU of putting thousands of migrants at risk Wednesday by scrapping rescue operations in the Mediterranean as Italian coastguards said no more survivors have been found from a shipwreck which may have claimed 400 lives.

The rights group accused Europe of "turning its back on its responsibilities and clearly threatening thousands of lives" by forcing Italy to abandon its Mare Nostrum rescue mission last year in favour of the surveillance patrols currently being carried out by its borders agency Frontex.

Jean-Frangois Dubost, Amnesty's displaced persons director in Paris, said the latest tragedy highlighted the "horror of nothing having been sorted out in the Mediterranean.

"In demanding an end to the Mare Nostrum rescue operation that saved 170,000 lives, and replacing it will a surveillance mission, the EU has turned its back on its responsibilities and clearly threatens thousands of lives," he added.

APP