Malta must take a boat with 450 migrants on board that is currently in its search and rescue area, Italy's hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday, vowing that the boat would not dock at an Italian port.
""The boat is in waters which fall under the jurisdiction of Malta, which has taken responsibility. Nothing happened for hours and the boat is now sailing towards Italy," Salvini said on Facebook.
"Malta, the people traffickers and all the do-gooders should know that this boat must not enter an Italian port, " Salvini's post read.
"We have done enough," he claimed.
Details on the boat were still sparse and the condition of the migrants aboard it was unknown, the Times of Malta reported, commenting that Salvini was "keeping up his anti-migrant rhetoric".
