ROME -- More than 100 Kurdish illegal immigrants, many of them mothers with babies and small children, arrived by boat on the southern tip of Italy early on Friday, police said.

The immigrants, who are believed to have paid $2,500 each for the voyage, are Turkish and Iraqi Kurds and arrived aboard a fishing boat bearing an Italian flag, which landed at Locri in the southern region of Reggio Calabria, authorities said.

Some 40 mothers and children were taken to hospital and two babies were in serious condition, medical sources said.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants slip into Italy each year along the country's long coastline, often risking their lives on rickety boats in the process, Reuters reported.

On Monday, as 117 immigrants arrived by boat on the island of Lampedusa in Sicily, the bodies of two Kurds were found in the back of a truck that had been ferried from Greece to the southern Italian Port of Brindisi.

The center-right government has made cracking down on illegal immigration a key aim and is pushing tough new legislation through Parliament which will make it much harder for immigrants to enter the country or obtain work papers.

The clampdown has sparked fears among human rights groups about a backlash against foreigners, who represent a relatively small 2.2 percent of the population.