Rome, November 4 (RHC)-- An Italian offshore supply vessel has brought 151 migrants to Sicily after rescuing them in waters off Libya a day earlier.  The Asso Trenta docked on Sunday at Pozzallo with the migrants.  It was not immediately known if they would stay in Italy, or be distributed among other European Union countries.

Hours earlier, a German charity's rescue boat, Alan Kurdi, had dropped 88 migrants off at Taranto on the Italian mainland.  Under an EU-brokered deal, 67 of them will go to four other countries, while the others will stay in Italy.

A Taranto official, Gabriella Ficocelli, told the Italian news agency ANSA the migrants included five unaccompanied minors who were "tired and tried by the voyage."  They disembarked eight days after being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea from Libyan-based traffickers' rickety vessels.

Meanwhile, the Greek government's decision to transfer migrants from the overcrowded eastern Aegean islands to the mainland was met with some resistance.  Residents, in two instances, tried unsuccessfully to prevent migrants from being housed in hotels in northern Greece.