Three boats carrying 667 African refugees from Libya including many women and children arrived on the Italian island of  Lampedusa on Saturday and more are on the way, a border guard spokesman said.

"We have seen four more boats arriving, two of which are in trouble. We are preparing a rescue operation," said the spokesman, Davide Miserendino.

"The bad weather in the past few days has created very strong concentrations" of refugees wanting to flee Libya. They are all sub-Saharans arriving from Libya," he added.

Lampedusa has seen thousands of arrivals of migrants and refugees mainly from Tunisia and Libya this year amid unrest in north Africa. Most of the arrivals from Libya are migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa reports AFP.