A controversial migration agreement between Italy and Libya has been automatically renewed for three years amid warnings by humanitarian organisations that this might make Rome and the European Union complicit in crimes against humanity.The Memorandum of Understanding on Migration – signed on February 2, 2017, to provide Libyan authorities with financial and technical support to “combat illegal immigration” – was automatically renewed for a second time on Thursday after a November 2 deadline for making changes passed. A June 2022 report by the United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya found that migrants faced “murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape, and other inhumane acts … in connection with their arbitrary detention”. HRW said Italy’s “obsession” with keeping migrants and asylum seekers away from its shores has meant “facilitating” the return of about 108,000 people to abuse in Libya since 2017.While about 9,000 refugees were evacuated from Libya by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) through an emergency mechanism since 2017, the rights watchdog said the measures were “a fig leaf” that “do not absolve Italy and EU.Many children, including new born ones, will suffer or die from that agreement..