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The five suspected smugglers — Libyan and Algerian men — were detained a day earlier in Palermo as they disembarked, along with 362 survivors, from an Irish naval vessel that helped in Wednesday's rescue, police said. Six other migrants who survived were helicoptered from sea to the hospital. Twenty-six bodies have been recovered.

Irish naval vessel Le Niamh was one of several ships requested by the Italian coast guard to speed to the rescue of the overturned boat shortly before noon, Irish Capt. Donal Gallagher told The Associated Press by phone.

Gallagher said that according to preliminary reports some 150 migrants were spotted in the water after the smugglers' boat, which was estimated to have been carrying 600 migrants, overturned. "An Italian (military) helicopter has dropped additional life rafts" into the sea, Gallagher said.