Migrant influx to Europe hits 100,000 in 2017: UN

More than 100,000 migrants have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe this year, the UN said yesterday, amid mounting tensions among EU nations on how to tackle the crisis.

Nearly 2,250 people have died in 2017 attempting the sea crossing from North Africa, the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) added.

Italy has taken in nearly 85 percent of the arrivals -- most of them sub-Saharan Africans crossing from Libya -- and has pleaded for help from other European Union nations, saying it is struggling to cope.

"The reception of rescued migrants cannot be seen as an issue only for Italy, but a matter for Europe as a whole," IOM chief William Lacy Swing said, appealing for the rest of the EU to show more solidarity.

On Sunday, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti called on EU neighbours to open their ports to rescue ships picking up migrants in the Mediterranean, after issuing a drastic threat to close its own ports to the boats.

Italy summoned Austria's ambassador yesterday after Vienna threatened to send troops to the border over the migrant crisis.

Meanwhile, Spanish coastguards said yesterday around 50 migrants are missing and feared drowned at sea, after they rescued three "exhausted and disorientated" men from a rubber boat that had initially held many more people.