Italy tightens border controls after Germany asks for help with migrants

ROME (Reuters) - Italy has agreed to tighten border controls and house hundreds of migrants after Germany asked for help dealing with record numbers of arrivals, Italy's northern border province of Bolzano said on Wednesday. An official from the German region of Bavaria had asked for Italy's help dealing with rising numbers of migrants and the central government in Rome offered to use the same border checks as were imposed temporarily during a Group of Seven meeting in Germany in June, the province of Bolzano said on its website. An Italian foreign ministry spokesman said the Schengen code, under which people can usually cross borders without checks in most of the European Union, had not been suspended. "There is just a general increase in the number of checks we carry out on those passing the border, which has been agreed by the frontier authorities," he said. The province of Bolzano also said it would temporarily house up to 400 migrants who are trying to make their way across the border from Italy to Northern Europe. (Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, Gavin Jones and Isla Binnie)