The number of migrants who reached Italy plunged 70 percent in the past five months, making arrivals more manageable, Italy's interior minister Marco Minniti said on Tuesday.
"The number of migrants dropped by 70 percent in the past five months and by 34 percent in the past year," Minniti told a social policy conference taking place in Rome at Italy's lower house of parliament.
"These figures enable us to handle these flows in a more reasoned way," Minniti stated.
Minnit cited a pact signed on Monday between the Italian government and 265 mayors in the southern Campania region under which at least 5,000-7,000 asylum-seekers will be given jobs locally including as attendants at Pompeii and another major tourist site.
"Integration policies enable security....although there is no equation between immigration and terrorism, a link certainly exists between terrorism and (a lack of) integration," Minniti said.
