THE families of refugees who went missing in the Mediterranean Sea on Christmas day are asking why European authorities have not begun looking for them.

The refugees – believed to number 13 – fled the shores of war-torn Libya from Sabratah in a fibreglass boat in the evening on December 24, a relative of one of the missing told the distress hotline activist network Alarm Phone on Boxing Day.

“Unfortunately the boat didn’t have a satellite phone,” an Alarm Phone activist told the Star today.