But, at the same time, he said that his defence forces had been instructed "to take all steps needed to foil the Eritrean invasion", and that the Eritreans must withdraw from areas they had occupied.
In the early hours of 3 October, near a beach once declared the "world's best" by users of TripAdvisor, a boat packed with more than 500 Eritrean men, women and children caught fire and capsized.
"Many of the Eritrean women come here pregnant, we have to help," said Sister Inma Moya, a Spanish nun.
"Most of the Eritrean children refuse to be identified by the authorities on arrival in the country because the Dublin Convention doesn't allow them to claim asylum in other countries if they have been registered in Italy," says Elvira Iovino, director of Centro Astalli, a migrants shelter in Catania.
Now Mulugeta, like many of the Eritrean survivors and victims' relatives, is determined to return his friend's body to his homeland.
In Catania, on the eastern coast of Sicily, local NGOs say that Eritrean children have begun to be kidnapped from parks and train stations.
"Our country is a total dictatorship," one Eritrean refugee in Libya told the Guardian last week.
Simon said the attack occurred 12 to 15 miles from the Eritrean border.
Three Eritrean women who have come from Sweden to identify their dead relatives struggle through red-tape to replace a missing passport.
See article.A grim tollIslamic State released a video purportedly showing the execution of 30 Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians at two locations in Libya.
Dozens of Ethiopian tanks and tens of thousands of men advanced across the valley towards the Eritrean trenches, where they met a barrage of artillery, mortar-and machinegun-fire.
