* More than 665,000 have fled Libya, most stay in region
* 25,000 migrants reaching Italy must be put in wide context
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, April 26 (Reuters) - Europe should help frontline Italy and Malta cope with people fleeing unrest in North Africa, but the Maghreb region itself has borne the brunt of Libya&${esc.hash}39;s crisis, aid agencies said on Tuesday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Rome on Tuesday looking to end a row over North African immigration and seeking a deal on tighter EU border controls with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi before taking joint proposals to EU partners. [ID:nLDE73P0BZ]
Around 25,000 migrants, most from France&${esc.hash}39;s former colony Tunisia, have arrived in southern Italy so far this year, mainly aboard overcrowded boats landing on the island of Lampedusa.
But the vast majority of the 665,000 people, mainly migrant workers, who have fled Libya since February have crossed into Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Algeria, Chad and Sudan, aid agencies say. Only 5,182 of them have reached Italy and Malta.
"I think we need to put it back into a context. You&${esc.hash}39;ve got more than 600,000 people who have left Libya and transited through neighbouring countries. Tunisia and Egypt have kept their borders open, Chad, Mali and others have done the same," Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.
"In terms of migration, the migratory pressure is not for the moment on European countries, it is on countries of North Africa," Chauzy told a news briefing in Geneva. The U.N. refugee agency said that a distinction must be drawn between people fleeing fighting and possible persecution in Libya and economic migrants who have left Tunisia, mainly young men in desperate search of jobs.
"We have appealed a number of times to European countries to show solidarity with the countries on the frontline, namely Italy and Malta," Andrej Mahecic of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
"But also we would like to highlight the fact that the brunt of this crisis in Libya is being basically taken care of by the countries in northern Africa, primarily by Tunisia itself, with more than a quarter of a million people arriving there, and by Egypt and the other countries in the region," he said.
An estimated 30,000 Libyan civilians have now fled their homes in the Western Mountains region and crossed into southern Tunisia over the past three weeks, UNHCR said. [ID:nLDE73O0I2]
Most of the refugees are ethnic Berbers who wanted to escape fighting and shelling of their towns and villages, Mahecic said.
"The vast majority of (these) Libyan refugees are hosted by the local Tunisian communities, demonstrating once again their great generosity," he said.
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