Italy has had to cope with a record number of migrant arrivals in October.
The country’s interior ministry released figures on Thursday that showed 26,161 reached Italy so far during the month. An additional 1,000 people were rescued from dinghies later the very same day.
Nearly all the migrants hailed from West Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Even during the high points in recent summer months, only once did the number surpass 25,000 in one month.
Already this year, 159,000 migrants have entered Italy. The record was struck in 2014 when 170,000 people arrived.
"The smugglers are certainly better organised, since they have been able to send off up to 11,000 people in two days," Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Italy, told AFP.
The increase is due in part to fears that the new programme to train the Libyan coast guard in rescue operations will result in the closure of the exiting route to Europe.
"And if there is one thing that migrants do not want, it is to be rescued by Libyan coastguards, who take them to detention centres and plunge them back into the cycle of abuse and violence," Di Giacomo added.
He said that the organisation’s interviews with migrants revealed “staggering” stories of violence, including torture, rape, murder and starvation in Libya.
Italy has been outspoken in its criticism of the lack of European cooperation and the border closures some of its neighbours have made, leaving Italy to handle all the migrants.
Internally, the central government has also had to struggle to convince mayors to take in some of the migrants. The people of Gorino village, population 700, set up their own barricades last Monday to halt the arrival of 12 women destined to be houses in a requisitioned hotel.
"This is not how Italians do things," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano vented, before settling the women elsewhere.
