Bologna: Italy's new Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini started his new role by declaring his country could no longer serve as "Europe's refugee camp", as he pledged to press European Union officials for asylum law reform.

During a visit to a migrant reception centre in the southern Sicilian port of Pozzallo, the leader of the anti-immigration far-Right League party said shipwrecks off Tunisia and Turkey that left dozens dead Sunday could have been prevented.

At least 46 people died after their boat sank off the Tunisian coast, the country's Defence Ministry said. Their bodies were recovered from the water near the island of Kerkennah. Earlier in the day, nine migrants, including six children, drowned off Turkey.

"Every life is sacred - to save lives you have to stop the departures of these death boats, which is a lucrative business for some and a disgrace for the rest of the world," said Salvini, who was sworn in on Friday as part of the new populist government formed by the League in coalition with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. The attempt to shape the migration issue around saving lives was a shift in rhetoric for the firebrand, who rose to power on an anti-immigration promise to boot out more than 500,000 people with a "kick in the a---".