Merkel 'appalled' by migrant disaster, says Europe needs answers

 German Chancellor Angela Merkel is "appalled" by the latest migrant shipwreck disaster in the Mediterranean and wants Europe to find "answers", her spokesman said Monday, AFP reports.

Merkel, "like millions of Germans", is appalled by Sunday's capsizing of a fishing boat off Libya in which more than 700 people are feared dead, a few days after hundreds died in another incident, Steffen Seibert told reporters.

The victims had "started out -- desperate, perhaps also hopeful -- for Europe, and the fact they now have only found death on the way, that is a tragedy," he said.

"That this is taking place with sad regularity in the Mediterranean, that is a situation not worthy of Europe. A continent which feels committed to humanity must look for answers even when there are no easy answers," he added.

EU interior and foreign ministers are due to meet Monday after the latest disaster.

European politicians must urgently ask what can and must be done to prevent a repetition of such disasters at sea, Seibert said.

But he added they must also examine how "the complicated internal political situation in Libya leaves people smugglers a completely free path for their criminal business".

He said Merkel had called Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Sunday and the two were agreed that Europe "is to now act in this direction".