Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean since the end of Operation Mare Nostrum and the start of Operation Triton.

Operation Triton began on 1 November 2014 following unanimous calls from all 28 EU Member States that Italy’s Operation Mare Nostrum should be phased out. There have been no estimates made by the Government or by Frontex (the EU External Border Agency) with regard to the number of people who have drowned in the Mediterranean since the end of Operation Mare Nostrum and the start of Operation Triton as such estimates would be extremely difficult to make with any degree of certainty.

All deaths of this nature are, of course, utterly tragic and the Government is determined to do all it can with international partners to reduce the flow of illegal migrants taking such risks and to combat the organised criminals who are making huge profits by exploiting vulnerable people.