ROME: An Italian envoy will fly to Libya on Friday (today) to discuss radical plans to set up "reception centres" for would-be immigrants, with officials from both countries estimating that up to two million people have already massed on the north African coast in readiness for an opportunity to travel by boat to Europe.

The scale of the problem has been recognized by President Moammar Qadhafi's regime, which has indicated that it needs help to deal with the number of people who have travelled to Libya's poorly patrolled coast and the vast open deserts to the south.

The reception centre proposal, which has drawn criticism from some quarters, is part of a series of cooperation initiatives Italy is spearheading in an effort to control the flow of desperate illegal immigrants across the Mediterranean from northern Africa.

Libya is the only north African country which does not have a formal agreement with the EU on tackling illegal immigration, and has become the focal point of refugees, most of whom have travelled from across Africa and the Middle East.

The debate over illegal immigration has become a major political issue in Italy. It flared again this week when African boat people said they had thrown the bodies of 23 fellow travellers overboard after they died of dehydration and exhaustion on the 15-day Mediterranean crossing.

One member of Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet said all would-be immigrants should be sent home rather than be allowed to land. As Italy urged help from the EU, Libya's foreign minister, Muhammad Abdel-Rahman Shalgham, said his country needed cooperation to tackle the problem.

Since Tripoli decided to come out of the international wilderness and revive ties with the west, cooperation on immigration has begun. Libya has begun to police its southern borders with Chad, Niger and Sudan, with the aim of ultimately pushing the immigration frontline further south into Africa.

But Tripoli has often complained that sanctions meant it could not acquire the necessary night vision equipment, bullet- proof border patrol vehicles, surveillance motorboats and aircraft for repatriating would-be illegal immigrants. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.