The boats came ashore in southern Calabria and the small southernmost island of Lampedusa, according to the coastguard.

A fishing vessel carrying 110 men saying they were Iraqi Kurds landed at dawn at the Calabria port of Roccella Jonica.

They said they left five days ago from a Turkish port after paying between 1,100 and 1,400 euros (1,500 and 2,000 dollars) to agents.

Another 44 people including four women and a child were intercepted off Lampedusa by a coastguard boat.

Nearby another boat carrying 47 people was spotted by a navy vessel which took them to a processing centre in Lampedusa.

According to the UN refugee agency, in the month of June alone 77 people died and 133 remain missing in the Strait of Sicily between the Italian island and Tunisia, most having embarked on rickety vessels in Libya.