INVASION by any other name: The EU is facing a Surge in Illegal Migrants

Illegal migrants from Tunisia and Libya flood the tiny 

Italian island of Lampedusa

Large numbers of Syrian and Eritrean refugees are stranded in Libya waiting to be illegally smuggled to the European Union, the deputy head of the bloc's border agency warned on Wednesday. 

Over 26,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by boat from Libya in the first four months of this year, more than eight times the number of arrivals in the same period last year, said Gil Arias Fernández, the deputy executive director of Frontex, the Warsaw-based EU agency that coordinates border patrols and collects intelligence about the bloc's frontiers.

The influx is set to grow further as summer weather makes the sea crossing easier, he told reporters. The trend so far suggests a record number of illegal migrants will enter the EU this year, outstripping 2011, when more than 140,000 arrived during the Arab Spring. 

The warnings follow a statement Saturday by Libya's interim interior minister, Salah Mazek, who told a news conference in Tripoli that his government would help migrants leave for Europe if it didn't get EU financial aid to cope with them.

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"With regards to illegal immigration, I am warning the world, and the European Union in particular, that if they don't shoulder the responsibility with us, the state of Libya will take a position on this matter that could facilitate the quick passage of this flood of people through Libya," Mr. Mazek was quoted by AFP as saying. 

Frontex said it was drawing on migrants' testimonies and other sources to compile its assessment of the situation in Libya.

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