Italian authorities have started clearing the overcrowded, unsanitary refugee camp on the Italian island of Lampedusa off North Africa, with the navy transporting 600 migrants to Porto Empedocle in Sicily on Sunday morning.

The vessel then returned to Lampedusa to pick up a further 600 people. The move came in response to recent reports and events on the island.

At the end of last week, more than 1,800 migrants were counted in the camp, which is designed to hold just 350.

More migrants are expected to arrive on the island in the week ahead, and the authorities are aiming to empty and clean the camp as soon as possible, with the prefect of Agrigento on Sicily, who is responsible for Lampedusa, setting Tuesday as the deadline.

Reports on conditions in the camp have provoked outrage, after the former mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, posted images and a video on Facebook showing people lying in the open on old foam mattresses, overflowing bins and mountains of refuse in the paths.

The migrants include pregnant women and children. "The images could be from Libya, but no, this is Italy," Nicolini wrote.

Flavio Di Giacomo of the United Nations Organization for Migration (IOM) described the situation as a scandal in a tweet. He added that the numbers arriving were not the problem, but a poor system for distributing the migrants.

The Italian Interior Ministry has recorded more than 30,000 people arriving in the country by boat this year, including those arriving on Lampedusa./DPA