ROME—As many as 500 migrants seeking a better future in Europe may have drowned last week in the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy, United Nations refugee officials said Wednesday.

If true, the toll would make the incident one of the worst tragedies involving refugees over the last year.

On Tuesday, a team from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spoke with some of the 41 survivors of the alleged accident who had arrived at Kalamata, a Greek town on the Peloponnese Peninsula, the UN agency said in a statement.

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“If confirmed, as many as 500 people may have lost their lives when a large ship went down in the Mediterranean Sea at an unknown location between Libya and Italy,” said the agency.

With summer approaching and the seas becoming calmer, this tragedy may be a harbinger of a deeper emerging crisis. So far this year, around 25,000 refugees have reached the shores of Italy from North Africa, according to Italian authorities. While those numbers are slightly more than the 24,000 who arrived during the same period last year, the United Nations and other refugee organizations are expecting more people to take rickety boats plying the risky routes across the Mediterranean to Italy.

A controversial agreement between the European Union and Turkey has dramatically reduced the numbers of refugees reaching the Greek islands. Balkan nations are closing their borders as well, preventing travel from Greece to Germany and beyond. That has triggered fears that more refugees could attempt to enter Europe from Egypt or Libya.

Last year, more than 1 million refugees crossed the Mediterranean. They were mostly fleeing the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, using Turkey as a launching pad to Greece and then deeper into Europe. But the crossing from North Africa to Italy has historically been more perilous than the one from Turkey to Greece.

The survivors in Kalamata included 37 men, three women and a 3-year-old child. They were from Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. All were rescued by a merchant ship that then brought them to Greece.

“The survivors told us that they had been part of a group of between 100 and 200 people who departed last week from a locality near Tobruk in Libya on a 30-metre-long boat,” said the UNHCR.

After sailing for several hours, the smugglers tried to transfer the passengers to a larger ship “carrying hundreds of people in terribly overcrowded conditions,” the UN agency said.

“At one point during the transfer, the larger boat capsized and sank,” it added.

The 41 survivors included people who had not yet boarded the bigger ship and some who managed to swim back to the smaller boat, the UNHCR said.

The survivors then drifted at sea for about three days before being rescued by the merchant ship on April 16.

The survivors are currently being housed by local authorities in a stadium in Kalamata.

Almost exactly a year ago, as many as 700 refugees were believed to have died when their boat capsized north of Libya. It was the deadliest known sea disaster involving people crossing the Mediterranean in efforts to escape conflict or poverty.

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On Wednesday, the UNHCR again stressed its call for more “regular pathways” to Europe for refugees and asylum seekers, including “resettlement and humanitarian admission programs, family reunification, private sponsorship and student and work visas for refugees.”

“These will all serve to reduce the demand for people smuggling and dangerous irregular sea journeys,” said the agency.

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