ROME: Italian navy patrol ships rescued more than 3,500 migrants including hundreds of women and children from boats coming from North Africa, authorities said on Saturday, while Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called for help from the European Union.

The rescues, which the coast guard said have been going on since Friday evening, are the latest in a seemingly endless succession as the chronic migrant crisis in the southern Mediterranean has picked up this year.

A total of 3,612 migrants from Syria and North Africa were picked up from 11 boats and taken to ports in Sicily and the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, a coastguard spokesman told Reuters.

La Repubblica daily said most of the migrants were Syrian and Egyptian, speaking of “an exodus without end toward the coast of Sicily.”

Italy has long borne the brunt of migrants making the crossing from North Africa to Europe, but EU border agency Frontex says there has been a significant rise in numbers in recent months.

The Italian government this week put the number of migrant arrivals at over 39,000 so far this year — not far off the 43,000 registered in the whole of 2013.

That leaves the annual total set to surpass the 60,000 who made the trip in 2011 when the Arab Spring revolutions loosened border controls, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

The near daily arrivals of migrant boats, mostly leaving from ports in Libya, was an issue in Italy in the European parliamentary elections on Sunday.

The anti-immigrant Northern League, which had lost much of its support over the last two years due to corruption scandals and leadership changes, recovered to win more than 6 percent of the vote.

Renzi said in an interview with several European newspapers on Saturday that the European Union and the United Nations were not doing enough to help Italy handle the surge of migrants.

“Europe has to call on the United Nations to intervene in Libya and more generally it must show a capacity to manage the immigration phenomenon,” he was quoted as saying in the Italian daily La Stampa.

Many are asylum-seekers from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, and most are picked up by Italy’s navy.

Earlier this month, however, at least 14 died when a boat sank between Libya and Italy.

Libya has long been a springboard for Africans seeking a better life in Europe and the number of illegal departures from its shores is rising due to clement weather conditions and growing

whole of 2013, the coastguard said.