Italy urged its European partners on Monday to take a greater share of the immigrants pouring across from North Africa as hundreds more people arrived in boats in the southern island of Lampedusa.

"We ask all the countries of the European Union to take their fair share of the burden," Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told a news conference after a cabinet meeting on Libya.

He said nearly 15 000 immigrants, most of them Tunisians, had entered Italy illegally since January 1 with numbers surging as the turmoil in North Africa swept away the barriers which regional governments kept in place previously to hold them back.

Maroni, a senior member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, said that by contrast only 25 Tunisians had arrived on the coasts of Italy during the whole of 2010.

"That shows that if the controls don't work, you see what happens," he said.

Lampedusa, a tiny island to the south of Sicily which is just 150 km from the Tunisian coast, has borne the brunt of the flood of illegal immigrants over the past months.

"It is a neverending flood, we're getting 12-13 boats arriving every day, on average with 80-100 people on board each time, and there is growing tension with the inhabitants of Lampedusa," Edoardo Faiella, a spokesman for the local customs police, said by telephone.

Local inhabitants have complained bitterly of being abandoned by politicians in Rome and the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has made the same complaint to its European partners.

RESOLUTION

Italy, which has joined the coalition conducting air operations against Libya and made 7 air bases available, says it faces the risk of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing instability in the region.

The fears were underlined on Monday morning when the first boat carrying Libyans since the recent crisis began arrived in Sicily with 200 people on board.

Maroni said the parties in Berlusconi's coalition would present a resolution to parliament asking the government to take up the issue with other countries.

"All the countries of the alliance, of the European Union have to accept the burden of these refugees which risk arriving in Italy, in Greece and Malta because they are the closest countries," he said.

"It is not fair that only these countries have to deal with it when we're talking about tens of thousands of people."

Controls would also be increased to thwart infiltration by "criminals or terrorists" who may try to enter Italy with the immigrants, Maroni said.

Many of those arriving, mostly young men unable to find work at home and risking the often perilous crossing in search of jobs in Europe, have been moved to other parts of Italy but a reception centre in Lampedusa has been filled to overflowing.

Maroni said the government would compensate Lampedusa residents for the damage to their economy, based mostly on tourism and fishing.