(ANSA) - Milan, January 3 - Anti-immigrant Northern League leader Matteo Salvini said Tuesday there would be "mass expulsions" of migrants when the League gained power, after the most recent revolt in a migrant centre in Italy.

Speaking after volunteers were briefly seized at the centre near Venice, Salvini said "we will carry out mass expulsions, Italy has had enough of such cases".

"2017 will be the year we take our country back" Salvini criticised the migrants, who were protesting after the death of a young Ivorian woman, for "setting fire to furniture and abducting operators including doctors and nurses all night".

