Rome (CNN) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited a small Mediterranean island Saturday to press home his message that European countries must help deal with a "human tsunami" of North African migrants.
France has agreed to help, Berlusconi said, expressing confidence Germany will agree to become a partner in dealing with the growing crisis, despite economic problems facing the European Union.
Berlusconi said Saturday the Italian government will provide aid, including 150 off-road vehicles and four coastal patrol boats to Tunisia. There also is an agreement to send ships just outside territorial waters to intercept boats, the prime minister said.
Though owned by Italy, Lampedusa's closest shore is Tunisia.
Berlusconi is trying to alleviate the cost to Lampedusa and the rest of Italy in handling the crush of an estimated 22,000 newcomers over the past few weeks.
The unauthorized migration has had, in some cases, deadly consequences.
A boat carrying nearly 300 people capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, according to Italian Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro.
It sank Tuesday about 62 kilometers (39 miles) west off Lampedusa in Maltese waters, the Italian Coast Guard said.
By Thursday, officials had rescued 53 people, and recovered 15 to 20 bodies, leaving more than 200 missing, Nicastro said.
Many of the survivors came from African countries, such as Eritrea, Somalia and Niger, the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera said. Others were fleeing the war in Libya, the newspaper said.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the majority of unauthorized immigrants arriving in Lampedusa are Tunisian.
A popular uprising in Tunisia led to the ouster of its president, Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, in January. While protesters succeeded in spurring a regime change there, many Tunisians are not seeing the kind of transformation they were imagining.
Political unrest, increased enforcement in other areas and calmer waters have all contributed to what is becoming an issue that the European Union will have to face.
Under a European Union directive, the member countries are to distribute a mass of unauthorized immigrants through a yet-to-be determined formula among all the countries, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute. According to this directive, temporary protection is triggered when there is a "mass influx" of displaced persons.
Italy's foreign minister has estimated as many as 300,000 Libyans could try to leave and potentially end up in his country.
The result has been overcrowding at Lampedusa. The migrant reception center there has a capacity for 800, but almost 5,000 migrants are there, IOM reported.
CNN's Hada Messia and Marilia Brocchetto contributed to this report
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