Anti-immigrant politician Matteo Salvini on Thursday called for an "immediate" naval blockade in the Mediterranean to halt the continuing flow of migrants heading for Italy by boat.
"This is a no-brainer: we need an immediate naval blockade or things will end badly....stop this invasion," Salvini wrote on Facebook.
The comments from Salvini came after taly's premier Paolo Gentiloni said Wednesday the government was considering the use of Italian navy ships in Libyan waters to stop the people traffickers' boats setting sail.
Libya's United Nations backed prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj recently sent a written request to Rome asking for help from the Italian navy to block the migrant boats in Libyan waters, Gentiloni said.
Over 90,000 boat migrants have entered Italy this year - a 14 percent increase from 2016 - and over half a million people have landed in the past three years after fleeing war, poverty and conflict in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
European Union leaders agreed in 2015 to relocate 120,000 refugees from Italy and Greece - frontline states in the Mediterranean crisis - to other EU countries under a controversial quota system but so far only 22,000 have been taken in.
Two East European countries - Hungary and Slovakia - have mounted legal challenges to the EU quotas and Poland and the Czech Republic have also refused to take in asylum-seekers under the system.
