Tunisia's foreign minister resigned Sunday after just over two weeks in the job as the interim government faced strong pressure from Italy to stem a massive exodus of Tunisians fleeing poverty.
Ahmed Ounaies, who joined the reshuffled interim government formed on January 27 by Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, quit a day before a visit here by Catherine Ashton, the European Union's top diplomat, a month after the ouster of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Italy meanwhile said Sunday it was planning to deploy its security forces inside Tunisia to stop a wave of immigrant arrivals, as coastguards intercepted another 1,000 immigrants from the North African state. "I will ask Tunisia's foreign minister for authorisation for our forces to intervene in Tunisia to block the flux," Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the anti-immigration Northern League party said in a television interview.
"The Tunisian system is collapsing," said Maroni, speaking ahead of Tunisian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abderraouf Ounais's visit expected on Thursday. "I have asked for urgent intervention by the European Union because the Maghreb is exploding," Maroni added, referring to the North Africa region.
A total of around 5,000 Tunisian migrants have landed on dozens of small fishing boats in the past five days on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, which usually has just 6,000 residents and is struggling to cope. "It's out of control," Lampedusa mayor Bernardino De Rubeis told reporters as boats continued to arrive on the tiny island, which at just 110 kilometres (68 miles) from Tunisian shores is closer to North Africa than to Italy.
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