Amnesty UK hosts powerful bodybag protest on Brighton beach as part of the #DontLetThemDrown campaign

The campaign features a call to action stating: "Tell David Cameron to make saving lives the priority – there is no justification for leaving people to drown."

A total of 9,293 people have signed the petition so far.

One clear message to all the EU's leaders from Brighton: #DontLetThemDrown Join our call http://t.co/MKHm0WscMp pic.twitter.com/pSaXgjkA7k

— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) April 22, 2015

Kate Allen, Amnesty UK director, said: "Until now, the British government’s response has been shameful but finally foreign ministers seem to be waking up to the need to act. EU governments must now urgently turn their rhetoric into action to stop more people drowning on their way to Europe.

"The equivalent of five passenger planes full of people have drowned last week alone, and this is only the start of the summer. If they had been holiday makers, instead of migrants, imagine the response."

The campaign follows Katie Hopkin’s coming under fire for suggesting in her Sun column that gunboats should be unleashed on immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa, an article which saw a petition muster hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for her sacking.

The vast majority of people making the crossing were found to have originated in Syria, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast and Ethiopia, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.