Up to 10,000 people stranded in refugee camps and detention centres in Libya could be relocated to Europe in 2018, the Italian government said yesterday.

The initiative would be part of an attempt by EU countries to address the deteriorating conditions in Libya, where thousands of people are held captive in inhumane conditions.

"In 2018, up to 10,000 refugees will be able to come to Europe without risk, through humanitarian corridors," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.

The announcement comes after a group of 162 "vulnerable" people, from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, were evacuated from Libya and arrived by military plane in Rome on Friday.

The group included single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, and was the first time refugees and migrants had been relocated directly to Europe by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR).

About 400,000 migrants are in Libya, including roughly 36,000 children, the UN children's agency UNICEF and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said earlier this month.