More intriguing than why the hapless souls were not rescued is this:
The call for an enquiry has come from one Mevlüt Çavusoglu. Mr Çavusoglu, who is Turkish, is president of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. The UK is a member of this esteemed organisation and other members include some other notable sanctuaries to which people flee from oppression having had their Human Rights infringed.
To name a few, as well as Turkey (350 deaths in custody and extrajudicial executions between 2005 and 2009); Russia (147th out of 168 contenders in the index of World Press Freedom); Azerbaijan (100 journalists victims of assault, some of whom have been pushed under trains); last, but by no means least Ukraine (172 complaints of torture and abuse in one year. Of that number, 90 complaints pertained to torture and abuse committed by police).
In addition to some of its dubious member states, some of the individual assembly members leave something to be desired. Italian Marcello Dell'Utri, for example has been convicted of tax fraud, false accounting, and complicity in conspiracy with the Sicilian Mafia. He has been sentenced to a total of more than 10 years in jail since 1999, but has never served jail time.
As far as I am aware Turkey and some of the other more contemptuous members of the Council of Europe have not been overly troubled by asylum seekers from Libya or indeed anywhere else. I expect they would get very short shrift if they did survive the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and managed to land somewhere on the north east shores of the Black Sea. But Mr Çavusoglu sees fit to castigate the whole of Europe for what he sees as an infringement of migrants’ human right to be rescued after they have put to sea in a balsa wood boat.
Pots, Kettles and the colour black spring to mind.