There were 3,843 migrants and refugees including 181 unaccompanied minors in the Lampedusa hotspot mid Sunday afternoon following the transfer of 568 people off the island by passenger ferry to Porto Empedocle earlier in the day.
In the evening, two groups of 70 people each are expected to be transferred by military aircraft to Pratica di Mare near Rome and Pisa in Tuscany.
There are also plans to transfer a group of about 250 people (not 100 as originally stated) to Porto Empedocle by ferry.
Early on Sunday there were nearly 4,300 people in the temporary reception centre in Contrada Imbriacola following record arrivals on Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, on Sunday a finance police patrol boat intervened to rescue a group of 44 people from the island of Lampione west of Lampedusa.
The refugees and migrants, from Syria and Egypt and including three women and six minors, said they had departed from Abu Kammash in Libya at 8pm last Friday and that they had paid 3,000 dollars each for the journey.
The group was disembarked on Lampedusa, taking to 252 the total number of people to have arrived so far on the island in five separate landings on Sunday.
Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)