Austria's foreign minister Sebastian Kurz called on Italy Thursday to stop migrants from reaching the mainland by halting the ferry services from the islands where they first land.

The call came as a dozen far-right millennials from Europe and North America announced a plan to set sail next week to 'defend Europe' from what they call a migrant invasion from Africa, using social media as their weapons.

The supporters of the Identitarian movement, which says it wants to preserve Europe's identity, have rented a ship to take them to international waters off the Libyan coast so they can monitor humanitarian rescuers, who they say collude with people smugglers who cram migrants onto dangerous boats.

Catania's mayor, Enzo Bianco, a member of the ruling centre-left Democratic Party, said he will seek to keep the C-Star, the ship rented by the Identitarians, from entering the city's port and 'pouring fuel on the fire'.

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Austria's foreign minister Sebastian Kurz said he had told his Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano that 'rescue missions in the Mediterranean cannot be seen as a ticket to central Europe'. Pictured above, migrants, most of them from Eritrea, jump into the water from a crowded wooden boat as they are helped by members of an NGO during a rescue operation at the Mediterranean sea

'They are like vigilantes, people who take the law into their own hands without having any authority... the situation is too tense to be turned into the Wild West,' he said.

So far this year sea migrant arrivals are approaching 100,000, 13 percent higher than last year, and some 200,000 asylum seekers are living in state-funded shelters.

Austria's Kurz said he had told his Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano that 'rescue missions in the Mediterranean cannot be seen as a ticket to central Europe', on the sidelines of an OSCE meeting in Vienna.

'We hope that ferry services for illegal migrants will be halted between Italian islands like Lampedusa and the Italian mainland,' Kurz said.

'If people are quickly brought to the mainland from the islands and then continue to trek north, this will not only increasingly put pressure on central Europe but also encourage more migrants to set off' to reach the continent, he added.

Italy on Thursday presented its programme for when it takes over the chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation from Austria next year.

Alfano said there will be a strong 'focus... on the Mediterranean region', the migration crisis and terror threats, but also on promoting intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.

Nearly 90,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, up over 10 percent compared with the same period in 2016.

Nearly 90,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, up over 10 percent compared with the same period in 2016. Pictured above, refugees and migrants are seen swimming and yelling for assistance from crew members from the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) 'Phoenix' vessel after a wooden boat bound for Italy carrying more than 500 people capsized on May 24, 2017 off Lampedusa, Italy

'I'm starting to have serious difficulties,' Bianco told Reuters. The city's port took in 10,000 migrants during the first half of the year. An Ixe poll on Friday said 78 percent of Italians thought they had been abandoned by their European Union allies.

Next week the nine NGOs operating rescue missions are to meet with the Italian government, which wants them to sign a 'code of conduct', capping months of controversy. The charities have repeatedly denied any ties to smugglers.

'As a humanitarian organisation, our biggest concern is the women, children and men that we rescue from unseaworthy boats,' a spokeswoman for SOS Mediterranee, which operates the Aquarius rescue ship, told Reuters. 'Any attempt of interference would endanger the lives of people in need of protection.'

Emma Bonino, a former foreign minister who is calling on Italy's government to come up with better integration policies, said the Identitarians are trying to capitalise on increasing discomfort among Italians.

Poor migrants 'sleep in the rail station or in the street or they cannot work, so people see them doing nothing. This is what makes people uneasy,' she said in an interview in her Rome home.

Italians 'would like this problem to be managed in a more human and regular way,' she said.

To raise money for the operation, the Identitarians launched a website in May and have gathered some $170,000, enough to rent the 40-metre (yard) C-Star, which has been repeatedly delayed on its trip from its home port of Djibouti.

'This massive immigration is changing the face of our streets, of our cities, and soon the people who have been living here for thousands of years will be an endangered minority,' Sellner said earlier this month when he announced the sea mission.