Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, known for his hawkish stance on immigration during his tenure as interior minister in 2018, said on Wednesday that when 120 boats filled with migrants arrive on the shores of Italy at the same time, "it is not a spontaneous phenomenon, it is a declaration of war on Europe."

The deputy prime minister of the right-wing government in Rome, who currently heads the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, referred to the fact that the boats with approximately 6,000 migrants docked on the island of Lampedusa in one day. He stressed that the problem was not exclusive to Lampedusa and that the situation threatened to "collapse Italian society as a whole."