The European Commission on Friday (7 December) said more people were dying at sea because smugglers are using less seaworthy boats.
"What we are seeing here is a change of the modus operandi of the smugglers who are now no longer using the same type of vessels," a Commission spokeswoman told reporters.
The spokeswoman did not say why, noting that close to 700,000 lives have been saved since 2015. In September, she had offered an almost identical explanation.
But the omission...
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Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.