AT LEAST 132 deaths have been reported in the central Mediterranean to a refuge distress hotline this month.

In its monthly report released today, the activist network Alarm Phone details how on multiple occasions the European coastal authorities failed to respond to its reports of refugee boats in distress and how the EU-supported Libyan coastguard failed to launch rescue missions.

Approximately 37 people died in two separate shipwrecks off the coast of Libya on November 11 alone.