Italy to Declare Emergency on Refugee Arrivals

Italy will unveil emergency powers today to try to block a large number of immigrants and refugees who are said to be following the freighter which arrived in Sicily on Monday with 928 Kurds aboard.

Illegal immigration is becoming a political crisis amid reports that 50,000 uninvited people are headed for Europe.

Government officials said up to 15 other ships suspected of carrying immigrants and refugees were at sea, and most likely headed for the human traffickers' favourite entry point to the EU, Italy.

The Kurds' arrival inflamed rhetoric of an "invasion" and rocked the centre-right coalition which was elected last year partly on the promise of staunching the influx.

Umberto Bossi, the reforms minister, said his party, the Northern League, could not stay in government unless drastic measures were taken.

The newspaper La Repubblica cited an Italian intelligence agency report estimating that 50,000 more arrivals could reach Europe within weeks. Such a figure would be unprecedented.

Almost 1,000 people were crammed aboard a 69-metre (225ft) merchant ship, the Monica, with few supplies for a week's voyage from Turkey. Some 170 people, mostly Sri Lankan, were also recovering yesterday in Calabria after a 45-day ordeal at sea.

Eleven days ago a boat sank south of Sicily and dozens of Africans drowned.

The case of the Monica has caused alarm because the government, which had vowed to end such arrivals, did not stop the ship despite a week's warning.

Since taking power last June the centre-right has worried human rights activists and the Catholic church by imposing a new crackdown - yet the rate of arrivals has not dwindled: 6,000 since January this year suggests that last year's total of 20,000 could be surpassed.

Some of the passengers were so weak that they had to be carried off the Monica. Mostly from Iraq, they would probably have been taken by smugglers to a Turkish port city and dispatched, reportedly for $4,000 (£2,800) per adult, half that per child.

The Monica was 37 years old and only seaworthy enough for a one-way trip - a loss which the smugglers would have factored into their fare.

The Italian navy discovered that many of the passengers were thirsty, hungry, sick and even heavily pregnant. There was little alternative but to escort the ship to the nearest port, Catania, in eastern Sicily.

Because Iraqi Kurds can claim persecution at the hands of Saddam Hussein, Rome has signalled they will be allowed to stay - to the fury of Mr Bossi, who wants to deliver anti-immigrant action in time for May's local elections.

The interior minister said that only a global response could tackle a global problem.

"The instability created in the Middle East by September 11 means that many more people will decide to set off in search of a better life," he said. "Italy is the natural entry point for the west, an aircraft carrier from which to take off."