The United Nations refugee agency and aid organisations have called for action to stop an increasing number of migrants drowning at sea on the central Mediterranean asylum seeker route.

The UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are have expressed concern at tragic shipwreck off the coast of Libya this month appears to have claimed the lives of up to 130 people.

The rubber vessel, which reportedly sailed from the Al Khoms area east of Tripoli, is said to have capsized due to bad weather and stormy seas.

Aid agency SOS Méditerranée reported several bodies floating around the deflated rubber dinghy but no survivors in what is the largest loss of life recorded in the Central Mediterranean since the beginning of the year.

So far this year, at least 300 other people have drowned or gone missing in the Central Mediterranean – a significant increase compared to the same period last year, when some 150 people drowned or went missing along the same route.

The UNHCR has warned that more migrants and refugees may attempt the dangerous crossing as weather and sea conditions improve and living conditions in Libya deteriorate.

In Libya, migrants and refugees are increasingly subjected to arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, exploitation and violence, aid agencies say.

Agencies say these conditions are pushing people to make risky journeys, especially sea crossings which can end up with fatal consequences.

UNHCR has called on the international community to take urgent steps to end avoidable loss of lives at sea. This includes the reactivation of search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, enhanced coordination with all rescue actors, ending returns to unsafe ports, and establishing a safe and predictable disembarkation mechanism.

In the years since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted and killed long-time dictator Muhammar Gadhafi, war-torn Libya has become a major transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.

Smugglers often pack desperate families into ill-equipped rubber boats that stall and sink der along the perilous Central Mediterranean route.

In recent years, the European Union has partnered with Libya’s coast guard and other local groups to stem these dangerous sea crossings. But rights groups say those policies leave migrants at the mercy of armed groups or confined in squalid detention centres rife with abuses.

“These are the human consequences of policies which fail to uphold international law and the most basic of humanitarian imperatives,” tweeted Eugenio Ambrosi, Chief of Staff for the International Organisation for Migration.