Boat people and gunships in the Mediterranean

Australia might have halted the flow of 'illegal maritime arrivals,' as they've been designated by the Abbott government since October 2013, but in Europe the boats keep coming. And many of those who embark on dangerously overcrowded vessels from Libya and other countries in North Africa never arrive. In Libya alone, tens of thousands of people are believed to be waiting for an opportunity to make the dangerous voyage to Europe. Some estimates put the number at one million - but as the University of Queensland's Phil Orchard has pointed out, we should be wary of figures like these. What we know for certain is that some 31,500 'boat people' arrived in Italy in the first three-and-a-half months of 2015. Another 1500 drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.