GENEVA - More than 500 passengers recently rescued in the central Mediterranean, many survivors of “appalling abuses” in Libya, should be allowed to disembark by the European Union, said the UN refugee agency on Tuesday.

UNHCR Special Envoy for the region, Vincent Cochetel, said that it was a “race against time” to allow the stranded migrants and refugees off the two rescue boats, before weather conditions get worse.

He said that to leave them on the high seas in stormy weather “would be to inflict suffering on suffering”, urging that a safe port should be designated immediately “and responsibility shared amongst the States for hosting them”.

There was shock expressed last month across Europe when more than 50 died in Libya, following an airstrike on a detention centre, and as many as 150 died in the largest Mediterranean shipwreck of the year.

UNHCR said that those sentiments should now be “translated into meaningful solidarity with people fleeing Libya”.