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| Migrant crisis: UK to send ships to tackle people smugglers | Migrant crisis: UK to send ships to tackle people smugglers |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The UK will provide "vital military assets" to help a Nato mission tackling people smugglers in the Aegean Sea, David Cameron has said. | The UK will provide "vital military assets" to help a Nato mission tackling people smugglers in the Aegean Sea, David Cameron has said. |
| The PM announced the amphibious landing ship RFA Mounts Bay would be sent ahead of an emergency summit in Brussels. | The PM announced the amphibious landing ship RFA Mounts Bay would be sent ahead of an emergency summit in Brussels. |
| The ship, which carries a Wildcat helicopter, will be joined by two cutter boats and a civilian vessel. | The ship, which carries a Wildcat helicopter, will be joined by two cutter boats and a civilian vessel. |
| More than a million migrants entered the EU illegally by boat travelling mainly from Turkey to Greece last year. | More than a million migrants entered the EU illegally by boat travelling mainly from Turkey to Greece last year. |
| RFA Mounts Bay and two Border Force cutters will join naval vessels from Germany, Canada, Turkey and Greece as part of Nato's first intervention in the migrant crisis. | |
| The UK's chartered civilian vessel VOS Grace is already in the Aegean. | |
| 'Desperate flow' | |
| Mr Cameron said the migrant crisis was "the greatest challenge facing Europe today". | |
| "We've got to break the business model of the criminal smugglers and stop the desperate flow of people crammed into makeshift vessels from embarking on a fruitless and perilous journey," he said. | |
| "That's why this Nato mission is so important. | |
| "It's an opportunity to stop the smugglers and send out a clear message to migrants contemplating journeys to Europe that they will be turned back." | |
| Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the "primary mission" was to "build up a proper picture of the smuggling route". | |
| "Smugglers are making money out of people drowning," he said. | |
| "What's essential is to work out where this people smuggling is done from and then to get a policy in place of returning people which in the end will stop people making this very, very dangerous crossing." | |
| The EU has pledged €3bn (£2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing migrants and stemming the flow. | |
| Some 13,000 are stranded on Greece's border with Macedonia as European states seek to restrict entry. |