A record 181,000 migrants reached the shores of Italy in 2016 on flimsy boats from northern Africa.
This was a major increase of 20% over 2015, EU border agency Frontex said on Friday.
The sea route to Italy was the only path to Europe which saw a rise in migrant numbers last year.
Elsewhere overall refugee arrivals on the two main sea routes fell dramatically last year, plunging by nearly two-thirds from 2015. The reported total was 364,000.
Frontex said the decline was due in part to the EU border deal with Turkey, effective from March 2016, which helped reduce the number of migrants reaching Greece.
"The number of migrants detected on Greece's islands in the eastern Aegean and its mainland dropped by 79% to 182,500," Frontex said preliminary estimates showed.
The sudden arrival of more than one million migrants last year, triggered in large part by the desperate situation in Syria, created the most severe migration crisis in Europe since WWII.
Comments
Says it all!
So much evidence pointing to the currencies flaws, not least the wide differences in political and economic maturity amongst the less developed eurozone members.To prop up the failed currency the ECB, now holding 1 1/2 trillion of banks bad debts. Yet re-writing all hitherto understood banking practice by bizarrely not transferring to themselves the beneficial interest the issuing bank had over their borrower. Meaning that, amongst other things, the debt cannot be sold on without the issuing banks agreement - which, if a Graeco-Roman 'friends and family' unsecured loan is never. Now work that one out!