A team of Libyan officials were set to arrive Monday in the northwest Italian port city of La Spezia on Monday for a month-long training course, Libya's coastguard chief Tareq Shanbour stated.
The training of the 19-strong team will be followed by another month-long course that will teach coastguard how to operated a high-speed patrol vessel due to enter into service at the end of May, Shanbour said.
The training courses "put into practice a deal between Italy and Libya to fight illegal migration," Shanbour said.
He was referring to an accord signed by Libya and Italy in Rome in early February on providing training and equipment to bolster Libya's limited coast guard fleet and better control Libya's vast, desert borders.
The deal came on the eve of a summit in Malta on 3 February when European Union leaders pledged 200 million euros in 2017 to help stem illegal migration from North Africa via the Central Mediterranean, saying training, equipment and support to the Libyan national coast guard was a top priority.
As well as stepping up training of Tripoli's coastguard, the EU is offering unspecified sums of money to aid Libya - from where most of the people-traffickers' boats set sail - and other African countries to seal their borders.
Italy is the main entry point for boat migrants heading to Europe, and 15,750 arrived so far this year after 181,283 migrants landed in the country last year, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
The Italian Coast Guard has undertaken the rescue of hundreds of thousands of boat-migrants since the Mediterranean crisis began in 2014.
