Three babies were born on a ship carrying migrants to the Sicilian port of Catania after they were rescued in the Mediterranean, Italian coastguard said in a statement on Wednesday.
More than 10,000 migrants have been saved during 72 rescue operations in the Mediterranean over the past two days, the statement added.
At least 28 corpses have been recovered from the Mediterranean since Monday although the exact number of victims is difficult to know, the Italian Red Cross said on Wednesday.
"The numbers we are recording, especially the continually rising death-toll clearly show that this crisis requires sustainable solutions, not just search and rescue missions," the charity stated.
Also on Wednesday the Bourbon Argos rescue ship operated by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders docked in the Sicilian capital Palermo with 1,020 migrants on board who were plucked from the Strait of Sicily.
The migrants included 161 women and 15 minors and were mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa.
A total 302,975 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea this year through 1 October, of whom 132,069 landed in Italy, according to figures from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
But the journey has become deadlier as people traffickers cram many hundreds of migrants onto larger boats which can overturn and aboard rubber dinghies which leave passengers exposed to the elements and easily deflate and fill with water.
Some 3,502 people have been reported drowned or missing in the Mediterranean, compared with 2,926 of the same period last year, the IOM figures show.
