ROME, March 7 (UPI) -- People fleeing North Africa to the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea will be taken to refugee centers in southern Italy, officials said.
The refugee center on Lampedusa was swamped by 1,000 new migrants fleeing North Africa Sunday and Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said they would be taken to refugee centers in southern Italy, ANSA reported Monday.
The facility on the Italian island is designed to hold 850 people. Since the uprisings in Northern Africa started, thousands of people have fled there, most of them Tunisians.
Now, thousands of people are fleeing Libya, where military strongman Moammar Gadhafi has ordered troops to attack demonstrators seeking his ouster.
An Italian refugee camp was being erected on the Tunisian-Libyan border and it was being stocked with food, water, water purification equipment, medicine and electric generators.
Maroni has said the collapse of regimes in North Africa could lead to al-Qaida-backed Islamic fundamentalism.
