Amnesty International supporters zip themselves into body bags on Brighton beach

Visitors of Brighton beach today were in for a shock.

They were greeted by a whopping 200 black body bags, some of which contained Amnesty International supporters, alongside a banner with the hashtag, #DontLetThemDrown. Caroline Lucas showed her support for Amnesty on Twitter.

The bags were lined up in rows in front of the Brighton Wheel, and were part of an attempt to highlight the current crisis of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean sea before they could reach safety. It is estimated that the equivalent of 5 passenger planes worth of people have drowned in the Med in last week whilst trying to reach safety.

There will soon be an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels in order to address this crisis and to discuss a response. David Cameron will be attending.

Amnesty’s UK director Katie Allen said: “Until now, the UK government’s response has been shameful, but finally they have been woken up to the need to act.”