The Italian authorities say they have detained more than one-thousand illegal immigrants along the coasts of Apulia in south-eastern Italy in the four days since Christmas.

Police said more than one-hundred-and-eighty were arrested, after a fresh spate of landings overnight on Monday.

Police said a very high proportion of the refugees are children and most are Kurds from Iraq and Turkey and ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

Italian Television said refugee reception centres in Apulia are so full that several hundred have been transferred to camps in Sicily and Calabria.