The Latest: Salvini promises consequences for rescue ship

The Latest on the influx of migrants into Europe (all times local):

2 p.m.

Italy’s interior minister is vowing to make a charity boat with some 100 rescued migrants aboard pay dearly for docking in Sicily in defiance of a government ban.

Matteo Salvini, who leads the anti-migrant League party, tweeted the warning on Monday after the Eleonore entered Italian waters without permission and sailed toward a Sicilian port, where it was seized by Italian authorities.

Mission-Lifeline captain Claus-Peter Reisch said bad weather forced him to bring the migrants to Pozzallo’s port after they were stranded on board for eight days by the outgoing populist Italian government’s crackdown on humanitarian rescue boats.

Spurred by Salvini, the government has issued a decree establishing million-euro ($1.1 million) fines for captains of rescue boats that defy the ban on entering Italian waters or docking without permission.

Since authorities have seized the Eleonore, it appears they will let the migrants disembark.

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12:15 p.m.

Greek authorities have begun transporting about 1,500 asylum-seekers from the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos to the mainland, as part of government efforts to tackle overcrowding in refugee camps and a recent spike in the number of people arriving from the nearby Turkish coast.

A ship carrying 635 people set sail from Lesbos Monday morning for the northern port city of Thessaloniki. From there, authorities said the asylum seekers would be transported to a camp in Nea Kavala in northern Greece. A second ship carrying around 900 people was to leave Lesbos for Thessaloniki on Monday afternoon.

The transfer was part of decisions made during a national security meeting Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis convened Saturday, after nearly 600 people arrived on Lesbos in the space of an hour on Thursday.