Twelve female African asylum-seekers and their children were on Tuesday relocated from the small northern Italian town of Gorino Ferrarese after protesters set up roadblocks to prevent their arrival.
The women, who are from Nigeria, New Guinea and Ivory Coast, are now being housed in the nearby cities of Ferrara and three other towns in the province of Ferrara after talks between their mayors and the Italian government.
Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano criticised the unwelcoming behaviour of Gorino Ferrarese's residents, as did many Twitter users.
"Setting up barricades to keep out 12 women, one of whom is pregnant, dishonours Italy... this is not what our country stands for," he said.
The protests broke out late on Monday when dozens of people put up barricades to stop the migrants' coach entering the Po Delta fishing town and chanted anti-migrant slogans.
Some of the town's residents reportedly refused to go to work or take their children to school.
The women and their eight children had been due to be accommodated at a tourist hostel in Gorino Ferrara owned by the local authority.
Using five of the hostel's rooms to house the women was "necessary, taking into account the saturation of the shelters already in operation and the lack of further availability," the office of the Italian government's top representative in Ferrara said in a statement.
