A total 36 migrants were due to dock in the Sicilian port of Augusta aboard an Italian navy vessel on Friday after they were rescued in international waters some 75 nautical miles off Libya.
The Italian prime minister's office said the migrants would be taken to Augusta after they were transferred to the navy's Stromboli vessel from the Cigala Fulgosi patrol ship which saved them on Thursday.
A second rescue vessel, the Mare Jonio, operated by Italian NGO Mediterranea, docked in Lampedusa on Friday with 30 migrants on board whom it rescued on Thursday off Libya.
The migrants included five children an a pregnant woman who were picked up on Thursday by the Mare Jonio in international waters about 40 nautical miles off the Libyan coast.
Italian tax police and Lampedusa port officials moved on Friday to confiscate the Mare Jonio as part of an illegal immigration probe that prosecutors in Agrigento were poised to open, according to unnamed interior ministry sources.
