Alfano, from Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Freedom People party (PdL), said the summer surge had not prompted "an unmanageable emergency". But he appealed to the European Union for a more collective approach to border control on Lampedusa, where more than 8,000 migrants have landed this year.
The interior ministry figures show that more than 11,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean from Libya this year. In recent weeks many of the migrants have declared themselves to be nationals of Syria and Egypt, countries in the grip of bloody violence.¨
The sea crossing can sometimes prove fatal. In July the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it had recorded around 40 deaths in the first six months of this year of people trying to cross the Mediterranean between north Africa and Italy.
Last weekend, six young Egyptian men drowned when they tried to swim a short distance to the Sicilian shore near Catania.
