Rome - As more than 400 would-be immigrants landed on Monday in Sicily, Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said such arrivals from the North Africa would stop once an agreement involving Libyan naval patrols comes into effect in May.

"There's a commitment by the Libyan government to begin patrolling its coastline with six boats beginning on May 15," Maroni said.

"I have no reason to doubt that this will happen and that hence the problem will be solved," he added.

Earlier, Italian coast-guard operators brought to shore 153 people, including 29 women, whose vessel was left stranded overnight near the southern Sicilian town of Vittoria.

Also on Monday, a vessel carrying 249 would-be immigrants, most of them from Somalia, was escorted by a coast-guard patrol to Portopalo di Capo Passero, near Syracuse in eastern Sicily.

All the would-be immigrants are being housed in reception centres for identification purposes, officials said.

According to Italian government figures, a total of 36,900 would- be immigrants arrived in Italy by sea in 2008, a 75-per-cent increase over the previous year. Of these some 31,000 landed on Lampedusa, an islet situated south of Sicily. (dpa)