THE United Nations’ top human rights official called on the European Union today to urgently reform its search-and-rescue practices in the central Mediterranean, just days after the bodies of drowned refugee children washed up on a beach in Libya.

The lack of human rights protection for migrants at sea “is not a tragic anomaly,” says a new report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “but rather a consequence of concrete policy decisions and practices” by the EU and Libyan authorities.

The report also reiterated the UN position that people rescued or intercepted in the central Mediterranean should not be returned to Libya and that EU member states should reinstate their search-and-rescue operations and support the work of humanitarian NGOs.