Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has spoken out about racially motivated violence on social media | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images Italian opposition warns government of being ‘complicit’ in racist attacks Criticism follows attack on a black national athlete.

Italy's center-left opposition warned Monday that the government risked being "complicit" in a "spiral of racism" by denying there was a growing problem after a black Italian athlete was attacked.

Daisy Osakue, an Italian discus thrower born in Turin to Nigerian parents, said Monday she was hit in the face with an egg in what she believed was a racist attack. She was left with an injured cornea and required surgery, according to Ansa news agency.

"They did it on purpose," Osakue said, according to Ansa. "They didn't want to hit me, as Daisy, they wanted to hit me as a young woman of color."

"There is racism everywhere," Osakue said. "I hope that this will make it clear that the situation is not slowly deteriorating — it has already reached its limits ... A person should be able to walk freely at night without fearing that something might be thrown at their face."

The attack follows a series of incidents believed to be racially motivated in recent months, including a man shooting a Roma baby with a pellet gun last week, leaving her at risk of becoming paralyzed for life.

Though police said race may not have been a factor in Osakue's case as there had been other egg attacks in recent days, according to Ansa, opposition politicians have used the attack to criticize the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the government, especially the populist League party.

"Attacks against people of different skin colors constitute an EMERGENCY," wrote former center-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Twitter.

League leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, however, dismissed the criticism as an attempt by opponents to bring him down.

"A racist emergency? Let's not talk nonsense," he said, adding that while he would like to meet Osakue and condemned any act of violence, "mass migration allowed by the left does not help."

His coalition partners in the 5Star Movement issued a statement expressing solidarity with Osakue, but noted "investigators will tell us what the motive was."

"Whoever denies the spiral of racism that is growing in the country becomes complicit," said the leader of the center-left Democratic Party Maurizio Martina on Twitter.

MEP Cécile Kyenge, who who was Italy's first black Cabinet minister, tweeted that Osakue was the "umpteenth victim of racist violence" recently. "Let's not surrender to this climate of hate," she said.