n this handout photo released by German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, migrants sit on the deck of a Libyan coast guard ship after being intercepted while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea on a rubber boat to Europe. AP
Under the 2017 accord, Italy and the EU help fund, train and equip the Libyan coastguard, which then intercepts migrants in the Mediterranean and forcibly returns them to the strife-torn country.
"Europe, defender of human rights, should under no circumstances make deals with a country... where migrants are tortured, become victims of slavery or of sexual abuse," Claudia Lodesani, head of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Italy, told a press conference in Rome.
Campaigners say nearly 100,000 people have been intercepted in this way over five years. Many are believed to have ended up in Libyan detention centres, compared by Pope Francis to concentration camps.
Critics lament a lack of accountability, with no public information on who receives the money in Libya, while rescuers slam a "Wild West" situation with armed militias posing as the Libyan coastguard.
The appeal by 40 organisations including Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty, calls for urgent action by Italy's new far-right government, which was sworn in at the weekend.
If Rome does not scrap the deal by November 2, it will be automatically renewed for another three years.
In her inaugural speech to parliament, new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed Tuesday to take a tough line on boat migrants.
'Captures, pushbacks'
Italy has long been on the migration frontline, taking in tens of thousands of people who attempt the world's deadliest crossing yearly.
It had numerous agreements during the 2000s with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on curbing migratory flows.
The partnership was suspended following the collapse of the Libyan government and the European Court of Human Rights' 2012 condemnation of Italy for intercepting and forcibly returning people to Libya.
But wars in Syria, Iraq and Libya sparked a wave of refugees in 2015, with over 150,000 people crossing in boats to Italy, followed by over 180,000 people in 2016.
Thousands more died trying.
In 2017, Italy's centre-left prime minister Paolo Gentiloni signed a new deal with Fayez al-Serraj, head of the UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord, aimed at reducing the flow.
From then onwards, rescue charities including the Alarm Phone hotline used by migrants in distress were "told by Italy to alert the Libyan coastguard instead", Chiara Denaro from Alarm Phone said.
She said it was "not possible to consider the forcible return of people desperate to flee".
The so-called coastguard "fire weapons, they perform dangerous manuevers that risk causing shipwrecks... We can describe the returns as captures, as pushbacks, but not as rescues," she added.
The EU has contributed 58 million euros to date to the accord.
Investigative Italian journalist Duccio Facchini on Monday revealed Italy had spent another 6.65 million euros on 14 new speed boats for the Libyan coastguard just a few months ago.
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