Rome  - Hundreds of Afghan children who make up the majority of unaccompanied minors living on the streets of Rome mostly arrive in Italy following hazardous journeys through Greece and Turkey and the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Italian news reports said Sunday.

The discovery this week by police of 24 Afghans - aged between 10 and 15 - living in makeshift underground shelters at Rome's Ostiense railway station, has cast the spotlight on the plight of immigrant street-children in the Italian capital.

Some of the children have described how, unaccompanied by their parents, they left their homes in the Afghan cities of Herat or Ghazni travelling thousands of kilometres hidden on trucks and ferry boats.

According to Rome daily La Repubblica, some of the children and their relatives paid up to 10,000 dollars for the trip. It was not clear where they obtained the money to do so.

Some 1,100 unaccompanied immigrant children are estimated to live in Rome's streets, compared to and 262 in 2007 and just 32 in 2004, according to figures cited by La Repubblica.

Of these, 30 per cent are believed to be Afghans and another 30 per cent are Romanians. Some 15 per cent of the immigrant street children are from Morocco, 13 per cent from Egypt and around 12 per cent from Albania.

The 24 Afghan children shared their cramped living quarters with over 90 adults at the Ostiense train station, where many of Rome's homeless seek shelter, especially on cold, winter nights.

The children have been transferred to two municipal youth shelters where through interpreters attempts are being made to identify them, Rome's welfare superintendent Sveva Belviso, said on Saturday.

Since January, the number of requests to house in city shelters unaccompanied children has increased by 100 per cent, she said.

"The 900 beds have now all been taken and we are now forced to seek alternative accommodation in other Italian regions," Belviso said. dpa