TUNIS: 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 Jan. 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 authorization 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 Thursday. “I have asked for urgent intervention by the European Union because the Maghreb is exploding,” Maroni added, referring to the North Africa region. “Europe is not doing anything .... As usual we're on our own,” he said. Tunisia late Sunday, however, rushed security forces to coastal areas to stop a Europe-bound exodus of people, a government source said. 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 kilometers from Tunisian shores is closer to North Africa than to Italy. A young Tunisian migrant drowned and another was reported missing when a boat carrying 12 people sank Saturday off southeast Tunisia en route to Europe, the official Tunisian TAP agency said. A calm sea and good weather have favored conditions for the Mediterranean crossings, which come after the Jan. 14 fall of Ben Ali and the ensuing weeks of social unrest and lawlessness. Italian authorities have begun airlifting many of the undocumented immigrants from Lampedusa to detention centres in Sicily and on mainland Italy, but police estimate that more than 2,000 of them remain on the island. Hundreds have had to sleep out in the open at the port because of a lack of facilities on the island, while others have been put up in local hotels. “The situation is very difficult,” the harbor master, Antonio Morana, told reporters. He said 977 people had landed so far Sunday and more were coming. Italy's cabinet Saturday declared a humanitarian emergency in the area. Ounaies' resignation is another blow to the interim government. The 75-year-old retired diplomat, had barely resumed work since returning from a visit to France on Feb. 4, diplomatic sources said. He had been heckled by foreign ministry staff on Feb. 7 demonstrating outside and inside the ministry demanding his immediate departure after the Paris visit, as a result of which he took his personal belongings and left. In the first government of national unity announced on Jan. 17 he had been appointed secretary of state at the Foreign Ministry. In France Ouanaies hailed his French counterpart Michele Alliot-Marie as “above all a friend of Tunisia” at the very moment she faced calls to resign after admitting that she used a private plane owned by a Tunisian businessman with alleged ties to the regime of the country's since-ousted leader. His departure came as the country was set to mark the one-month anniversary of Ben Ali's downfall. A cortege of buses filled with food, blankets and medical supplies Sunday arrived in the central town of Kasserine, where the popular revolt began, to express thanks and solidarity.
