Lampedusa, Italy  - Angry at the Italian government's decision to open a new immigrant detention centre on their islet, hundreds of Lampedusa's inhabitants Tuesday staged a protest march.

The demonstration was organized by Lampedusa's local authorities who also called on shopkeepers and other businesses to remain shuttered in solidarity.

Earlier this month Italy's conservative government said it would no longer transfer would-be immigrants from Lampedusa to other reception centres in Italy, but instead build a new centre on the island where new arrivals would be identified before being returned to their home countries.

Later Tuesday Interior Minister Roberto Maroni was scheduled to meet authorities in Tunisia to negotiate the return to the North African country of a reported 1,000 of its nationals currently staying at an existing reception centre on Lampedusa.

"Minister Maroni has gone on strolls abroad before, but with scant results," Lampedusa Mayor Dino De Rubeis was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

The mayor, who was participating in Tuesday's march, referred to an accord signed by Italy and Libya in 2008 for joint patrols by the two countries' navies to curb illegal immigration across the Mediterranean.

"Instead of the patrols what has happened is that since last August more than 33,000 migrants have landed on our shores," De Rubeis told ANSA.

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

De Rubeis was also at the forefront of a protest organized by the islet's inhabitants on Saturday.

Then, in an unprecedented scene on Lampedusa's main square, a rally staged by locals was joined by hundreds of immigrants who, just hours before, had temporarily escaped from the reception centre.

The immigrants, later returned to the reception centre which currently accommodates some 1,800 people, but only has capacity for
800.

Last week the United Nations refugee agency warned Italy that overcrowding at the facility on Lampedusa posed a security and sanitary risk and that the policy to seek the swift repatriation of the migrant may contradict measures aimed at safeguarding refugees.

But Maroni, who is from the anti-immigration Northern League party in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition, says asylum-seeking procedures are often used by those not eligible for refugee status as a means to avoid repatriation. (dpa)