Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has called on Victoria state to resolve its youth gang "crisis" or else "someone is going to be killed."

Residents in Melbourne's west said they feared for their lives when dozens of Sudanese-Australian youths started throwing rocks at police cars.

Police ordered residents to lock their doors and stay indoors while they contained the situation.

No arrests were made but police said they "dispersed" the crowd after heavily-armed specialist officers arrived on the scene and expect to make arrests in the coming days.

Speaking on Thursday morning, Dutton blamed Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews for failing to solve the issue despite having years to do so.

"He needs to, I think, come out and start sorting this out, because at the moment people are getting hurt and somebody is going to be killed."

"We've predicted that before. Tragically that's how it will elevate, and it needs to be sorted out sooner rather than later."

According to Victoria Police Commissioner Graham Ashton, news of the fight was spread on social media ahead of time and 20 to 30 youths were involved.

"You can call them gangs ... but if you think of them as gangs it's not the way we tend to respond to them as they don't have the traditional thing that we think (gang) groups have," Ashton told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Thursday.