At least 26 Africans died trying to reach Italy in a rickety wooden boat, police said on Sunday, reigniting a political argument about how to staunch the flow of illegal migrants to Italian shores.

A merchant ship from Gibraltar plucked 75 African immigrants to safety on Sunday who had been drifting in a 45 foot boat 75 miles off the coast of Sicily with little food or water.
 
The migrants said about 100 people had been in the boat when it left Libya nine days ago but a quarter of those died on the way and the survivors threw their bodies overboard, police said.

"My son didn't make it, I had to abandon him in the sea," said one of the survivors, quoted by ANSA news agency.

Another man died from suspected hypothermia while being flown by emergency helicopter to a hospital in Malta, police said. Dozens of those rescued remained in hospital on Sunday evening suffering from severe cold and dehydration.

The survivors said they were from Sudan, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone and had paid US$800-US$1,800 for their passage, police said.

Small boats carrying illegal migrants regularly make their way between North Africa and Italy, with those on board aiming to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better life.

Scores have died in recent years when overcrowded boats capsized or sank, raising calls for more preventative measures in addition to the constant patrol of Italian coastguards.

But the flow has also fueled Italian fears about the peninsula's long, largely sea-facing borders particularly after weeks of threats of attacks by Islamic militants.

Fears Of Attacks

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said in a statement the latest sea disaster reiterated the need for more international cooperation to help distinguish between genuine and illegal migrants, and criminal organizations also using the channels.

He added a ministry representative would be shortly sent to Tripoli to discuss the situation.

But while Pisanu was urging more contact between countries to deal with the problem, another member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition called for Italy to "immediately close the door" on such migrants to protect itself.

"Islamic terrorism uses the open door of illegal immigration as an access channel," Roberto Calderoli, leader of the populist Northern League said. "If we do not remove the cause of the problem and shut the door on all illegal immigrants we risk having to empty the sea with a teaspoon."

Several left-wing lawmakers demanded Calderoli withdraw his comments, made just as Italy faces accusations of racism.

The editor of French newspaper le Monde wrote an open letter to left-wing paper la Repubblica this month accusing Italian border police of harassing his 20-year-old son of Indian origin.

While, best-selling newspaper Corriere della Sera has come under fire for publishing a book by leading journalist Oriana Fallaci warning of an Arab invasion of Europe and criticising authorities for allowing it to become "a colony of Islam."

In a full-page advertisement on Sunday, the newspaper said it had sold 500,000 copies of the book in a single day and had begun reprinting a second edition.

(China Daily August 9, 2004)