A total of 519 boat migrants and a corpse were due to reach the Sicilian port of Pozzallo on Tuesday aboard an Italian coastguard vessel, including 42 shipwreck survivors rescued by the US navy on 12 June.
Three women and a man who needed urgent medical assistance were transferred from the Italian coastguard ship 'Dattilo' to the island of Lampedusa.
Over 400 of the migrants were transferred to the Dattilo after being picked up in the Mediterranean by several merchant vessels.
The 'Dattilo' docked in Catania on Sunday with 932 mainly African migrants on board including 13 pregnant women and the bodies of two young Somalis - a man and a woman who died in each other's arms during the crossing from North Africa.
Anti-immigrant interior minister Matteo Salvini has said that migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by Italian coastguard vessels will continue to be taken to Italian ports but not those saved by international charities, such as Sos-Mediterranee, whose Acquarius ship was not allowed to dock in Italy on Sunday with 600 migrants on board.
Spain ended the resulting diplomatic standoff by giving the Acquarius permission to land at the port of Valencia, underlining deep divisions in Europe over how to handle an influx of migrants mostly from the Middle East and Africa.
Salvini has vowed to deport half a million illegal immigrants from Italy, where around 700,000 boat migrants have arrived from North Africa since 2014.
