Migrant boat crossings, arrivals and deaths in the Mediterranean are continuing to fall, Italy's hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini tweeted on Monday.
"I have the data to hand. Fewer crossings, fewer landings, fewer victims at sea," Matteo Salvini wrote in a tweet.
"This is the way to crush the illegal immigration racket. The Mediterranean must go back to being a sea where no innocent blood is shed," Salvini added.
A total of 22,541 168.265 boat migrants reached Italy this year through 19 December, compared with 114,611 in 2017 and 168,265 in 2016, according to the interior ministry.
The highest number of migrants are now arriving from Tunisia, followed by Eritrea, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan, the interior ministry figures show.
Despite a sharp drop in the number of migrant crossings from North Africa, the migrant death-rate has soared, according to the UN's International Organisation for Migration.
A total 1,268 migrants died in the Central Mediterranean this year through 14 November when 22,581 arrived, compared with 2,785 deaths at the same point of 2017, when 114,611 migrants landed, IOM reports.
