Summary
Rights groups Friday attacked EU plans to help Libya stem migrant departures as a recipe for children being sent back to squalid detention centers in the north African country.
The EU's attempts to get Libya to effectively blockade its own coastline follows a record year for arrivals in Italy (181,000 in 2016) and the deadliest winter yet in the Mediterranean, with migrants perishing at sea at a rate of 15 per day over the last three months, according to U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) figures.
More than 1,750 migrants were rescued in such circumstances on the eve of the summit, when Italy announced its own deal to provide more money, coastguard training and equipment to Libya's U.N.-backed Government of National Accord.
The U.N.'s children agency UNICEF said an unprecedented 1,354 migrants, including 190 children, had died in the Mediterranean in the past three months.
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