IT WAS another fraught weekend for refugees attempting to reach Europe by sea and for the activists trying to help them.  

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) confirmed on Sunday that the Libyan Coastguard returned 227 people to Tripoli in the early hours.

The survivors had fled in three rubber boats from Zawyia and Zwara, the UNHCR said, whose medics tended to the refugees upon disembarkation.