A boat carrying 17 migrants arrived undetected to Capo Rizzuto, Sicily, last night. The migrants were arrested on shore by policemen.
The migrants are believed to be Afghans, Kurds, Iraqis and Iranians.
There has been an upsurge in migrant arrivals on the Italian coast in the past few weeks and Malta saw the first arrival of a migrants' boat in nine months yesterday when 28 migrants were rescued from a sinking dinghy by a patrol boat. Another 27 migrants from the same boat were taken back to Libya by a Libyan patrol boat and taken back to Libya.