At least 200 people are dead after a inflatable dingies, each carrying hundreds of migrants, overturned in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
More than 191,000 people have been killed in th Syrian conflict up to April, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says.
A mass grave with the bodies of at least nine people has been uncovered in a family’s garden in Sri Lanka.
Prime minister David Cameron has said that the UK will act with the “greatest urgency” to offer the most needy Syrian refugees a “home in our country”.
The scale of this latest tragedy is unprecedented: at least 94 people have died and hundreds are missing after an overcrowded boat carrying some 500 people caught fire and sank off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy, early Thursday morning. Some 140 people have been rescued and the search continues for more survivors even as hope fades.