Italy will lend Libya six coastguard patrol boats to help the North African nation curb would-be immigrants trying to reach Italy from its shores, the Italian Interior Ministry said Saturday.
The measure is part of a protocol agreement signed by Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato and Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham in Libya's capital Tripoli on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.
"It will now be possible for mixed (Italian and Libyan) crews to patrol tracts along Libya's coast, and in front of the ports and bays from where human traffickers operate," Amato said commenting on the accord.
The measure would help "save many more human lives and to bust the criminal gangs" smuggling would-be immigrants to Italy and elsewhere in Europe, Amato was quoted as saying by Adnkronos news agency.
Amato said the use of joint coast guard patrols recalled an initiative Italy took together with Albania "which virtually wiped out" the clandestine flow of immigrants to Italy from across the Adriatic Sea.
Italy, as part of the deal, said it would continue trying to secure European Union funding in support of Tripoli's efforts to combat illegal immigration, the Interior Ministry said.
Each year thousands of would-be immigrants from Africa and Asia try to enter Europe illegally by crossing the Mediterranean Sea and attempting to land on Italy's extensive coastline, often with fatal consequences. At least 30 would-be immigrants, most of them Egyptians, drowned last month during two separate botched landing attempts, one in Sicily and the other in Italy's southern Calabria region.