BRUSSELS: EU leaders sat down for crisis talks on Thursday on possible military action against human traffickers in Libya, in a desperate bid to halt the tidal wave of refugees trying to reach Europe by sea.

The heads of state held a minute of silence for the hundreds of men, women and children who drowned Sunday in the Mediterranean’s worst migrant disaster, just hours after Malta honoured the more than 750 victims with a poignant inter-faith funeral service.

The wooden coffins of 24 of the dead were laid out on a red carpet in a tent outside the morgue at the Mater Dei hospital in Valletta and then carried away by Maltese soldiers for private burials.

“The migrants were escaping from a desperate situation,” the Bishop of Gozo, Mario Grech, told mourners. “They were trying to find freedom and seek a better life.”

The talks in Brussels are expected to focus on a military response to the crisis, and a draft statement ahead of the summit committed leaders to “undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers”.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was, according to the statement, “invited to immediately begin preparations for a possible security and defence policy operation to this effect, in accordance with international law”.

But even before the summit opened, the proposals drew criticism.

A “woefully inadequate and shameful response to the crisis”, said Amnesty International while the UN rights and refugees high commissioners described them as a “minimalist” response.

Dozens of migrants in Brussels staged a protest near the summit venue, attaching pieces of paper with the names of people who had died onto barbed wire put up as a security measure.

“Esther Down, 9 months old, Nigeria, drowned,” read one of the signs.If the draft statement is approved, it would be the first time EU governments — under huge pressure to both check the tide of migrants and provide greater help to those whose boats run into trouble — use military force to fight illegal migration.

At the same time, “no one is talking about boots on the ground,” a diplomatic source cautioned.

The draft also addresses the sensitive issue of what to do with people once they land on Europe’s southern shores, proposing that member states provide resettlement to 5,000 migrants, a small fraction of the number arriving each year.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2015

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