A NEW vessel will shortly join the flotilla looking for migrants in the choppy waters of the Mediterranean.

Yet the Suunta — a ship crowdfunded by shadowy far-right group Generazione Identitaria — is clearly not on a mercy mission.

8 Boat carrying migrants capsizes in the Sicilian Straight Credit: Getty Images

8 Graphic shows where migrants to Europe originate

The extremists’ firebrand Italian leader, Lorenza Fiato, 23, says: “Migrants breed like ­rabbits. They literally replace the native population in some neighbourhoods. We are being replaced in our own cities.”

Generazione Identitaria — known as the Identitarians — says it wants to preserve Europe’s national identities against a migrant “invasion”.

Already steaming towards Sicily, the Suunat will later this month attempt to turn back the flimsy dinghies laden with ­people escaping poverty and conflict in Libya.

With Europe’s migrant policy in disarray, the provocative presence of the far-right ship at the epicentre of this humanitarian tragedy — where more than 2,000 people have perished this year — will further heighten tensions.

Save the Children’s search and rescue director Rob MacGillivray, 58, called the anti-migrant group move “totally inflammatory”.

He told The Sun: “It’s completely crazy and out of order for this group to try to turn vulnerable people back and endanger their lives.”

8 Lorenza Fiato leader of the Italian branch of the far-right Generation identaria

8 Generation Identaria chartered the Suunta to turn back African migrants trying to reach Europe Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

Fiato says his ship will follow rescue vessels funded by non-governmental organisations.

Known as NGOs, the non-profit groups have been accused by some of running a “taxi service” to the shores of Europe on the continent’s busiest migrant route.

The Suunta will ask Libya’s coastguard to rescue the migrant boats. The far-right direct action is no idle boast.

In May the anti-Islam group used a small motorboat to try to block a charity rescue ship from leaving the Sicilian port of Catania.

Protesters screamed “No more illegal migrants!” as they pulled alongside.

Politics student Fiato revealed: “We managed to slow it down until the coastguard arrived.

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“It was a symbolic action. The coastguard came and took our passports, asked why we did it then let us go without charge.”

Since then the Identitarians — who run summer camps where activists take part in lectures and boxing training — has raised around £62,000 in little over a month of crowdfunding for the ten-day mission.

Meanwhile, the EU’s migrant policy faces a full-blown crisis. Italy threatened to close its ports to charity boats carrying migrants unless it received more help from European allies.

More than 500,000 migrants have arrived in Italian ports since 2014 — and numbers are on the rise again.

The Italian coastguard tries to co-ordinate rescue operations.

It is joined by charity rescue ships from countries including Germany, Malta and France.

8 Red Cross workers rescue migrants from International waters between Libya and Italy Credit: Alamy

8 Migrants wait to be rescued by "Save the Children" NGO crew in the Mediterranean sea off Libya coast Credit: Reuters

At least 2,125 people have ­perished this year attempting the sea crossing.

The United Nations High ­Commissioner for Refugees says 75 per cent of people arriving this year are men, while theremaining 25 per cent includes thousands of Nigerian women who are being trafficked into prostitution.

Most of the migrants are from Nigeria and other African ­countries. Many are economic migrants, not fleeing war zones.

And politicians and prosecutors have accused some charity workers of being in cahoots with people smugglers.

Italian MP Luigi Di Maio, 31, told The Sun he was worried some charities were providing a migrant “shuttle service” following several prosecutors’ probes.

Di Maio, the leading light in Italy’s most popular party, the Five Star Movement, added: “If confirmed, this is not a life-saving operation, this is a violation of EU rules.”

Charities have strongly denied they are acting as a taxi service and pull factor to migrants seeking a new life in Europe.

Save the Children says its ship the Sicily-based Vos Hestia is effectively an “ambulance ­service” which has saved 3,500 in seven weeks — a quarter of them youngsters. It vehemently denies it has had any contact with smugglers.

The charity’s MacGillivray said: “We find quite a few women who have been raped and a lot of people with chemical burns.

“The Mediterranean must be one of the largest mass graves in recent history.

“The smugglers don’t lie awake at night worrying whether the boat has got safely to Sicily. Without our rescue efforts more people would die.”

So far this year, 85,000 have sailed from Libya — which is still chaotically under the control of rival militias following the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011. The EU’s border force Frontex blames Libyan people smugglers for the migrant crisis.

8 Sicilian town of Mineo is home to one of Europe's largest immigration centres Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd

8 Body of a migrant woman floats in the Mediterranean Sea Credit: AP:Associated Press

Spokesperson Ewa Moncure, 52, told us: “The key here is getting rid of the smuggling networks in Libya. They are the pull factor.

“The boats are even more crowded. Two years ago we used to see a rubber dinghy of ten metres with 70 to 90 people on board. Now there are up to 180.”

And after migrants reach dry land, some go missing.

In May last year it was reported that 3,418 people had disappeared from Sicily’s vast Mineo migrant camp — with many likely continuing their journey to other parts of Europe.

One favoured route is via the mountainous Brenner Pass from Italy and Austria.

This week Austria vowed to send tanks and 750 troops to tackle any migrant influx through the pass.

Austria’s government later backed down — but the threat was a sign that the crisis is striking paranoia among EU nations and their open borders.

And amid the chaos, the EU is scrambling to formulate ­political answers to a crisis that has no end in sight.