One of the few English speakers aboard the boat, he said the small fishing boat was the one that called for help. The passengers did not have enough food or water, and there were pregnant women on board. Their captain had abandoned ship, taking off in another fishing boat off the coast of Libya. Bhatt couldn't imagine how such a small vessel could hold hundreds of people and wondered if the whole thing was a ruse. But as he steamed closer, his skepticism turned to shock.  

A mass of migrants were crammed into every inch of the vessel - so many that some appeared to be hanging off the side. Through his binoculars, he could make out children.

"They literally lifted up their babies, and they showed me," Bhatt recalled of the Oct. 22 rescue operation. "It was really difficult to believe."

But it's a scene that's playing out again and again in the stretch of sea between Libya and Italy - the center of the world's migrant crisis.  

Upheaval across the Middle East and parts of Africa is causing people to flee their homes on a scale not seen since World War II. In junked fishing boats and in the belly of dilapidated ships, they are attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach the safety of Europe's shores, with thousands dying along the way.  

Governments in Europe have failed to keep pace with this human surge, leaving search-and-rescue operations increasingly in the hands of commercial vessels.  

According to the International Chamber of Shipping, some 40,000 migrants were plucked from the Mediterranean last year by commercial captains and crews piloting everything from oil tankers to cruise ships with their own guests on board.  

Captains point out that they are bound by law and human decency to respond to emergencies at sea. But they warn that neither merchant crews nor their vessels are equipped to handle such large-scale operations and that reliance on them puts both migrants and seafarers at risk.

"We are not ready," said Capt. Bekir Emiral, the operations manager of Turkon Holding, a Turkish shipping company that was called to the scene of three migrant rescues in the past year, most recently in April. "We are container vessels with very limited accommodations. We don't have enough water or food on board. And what if somebody dies or gets injured? Who will be responsible?"

As summer approaches, the number of migrants attempting to cross to Europe by sea is expected to only increase, and maritime groups are becoming more vocal about the need for beefed-up EU-run patrols.  

The EU did decide to boost resources for search-and-rescue operations after the death of some 800 migrants in a disaster on April 19, when a boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Under the new plan, European authorities will target smugglers more aggressively while increasing funding for patrol operations run by the EU border control agency, Frontex.