On 27 August, the UNHCR launched one more alarm about a shipwreck in which 40 people are estimated to have drowned off Libyan coasts. At the end of July, the OIM and UNHCR denounced another shipwreck, the “year’s worst Mediterranean tragedy”, in which 150 people were estimated to have died. After these tragedies, HR/VP Federica Mogherini, the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn and the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos published a common statement expressing their concern about the situation and declaring that the EU “remains strongly committed to fighting traffickers and smugglers and to strengthening the capacity of the Libyan Coast Guard to save lives at sea, ensuring full compliance with international standards”. On the other hand, the last UNHCR’s press release asks for “renewed efforts to reduce the loss of life at sea, including a return of EU State search and rescue vessels” and added that “coastal states should facilitate, not impede, efforts by volunteers to reduce deaths at sea”, in reference to the recent “legal and logistical restrictions on NGO search and rescue operations, both at sea and in the air” adopted by several EU Member States.