Heartrending images show migrants waiting to be rescued after overcrowded fishing boat capsized claiming at least 200 lives (27 Pics)

Scattered across the sea: Hundreds of migrants await rescue in the Mediterranean Sea 15 miles off the coast of Libya on Wednesday after their boat capsized - killing at least 200

Clinging to life: Those with life-jackets were able to float on the water as Italian crews went back and forth hauling survivors on to dinghy before taking them to the safety of a larger ship. Others not so well-equipped were seen thrashing around in the water while - many drowning before they could be reached

Desperate situation: Remarkable footage and images taken on a GoPro camera shows survivors clinging with their last strength to a life-belt while so widely dispersed, they are visible only as dark shapes on the horizon

Grim task: As well as saving people, rescuers pulled a number of dead bodies out of the water following the tragic incident

Plucked from water: A rescue worker holds a baby in a pink life-jacket in his arms after finding them in the water

Passed to safety: The baby is handed up to rescue worker on a boat after spending hours in the water

Hoisted on to boat: It is unknown whether the baby survived the terrible ordeal, which took place 15 miles off the coast of Libya on Wednesday

Suspected smugglers arrested: One of the five alleged smugglers, arrested today, is pictured arriving with the 373 survivors at the port of Palermo yesterday

Survivors told investigators their smugglers used violence to keep people in the vessel's hold, increasing fears that hundreds died trapped inside, police in Sicily said today (Above, is another of the five suspected smugglers) 

The five suspected smugglers - Libyan and Algerian men - were detained a day earlier in Palermo as they disembarked yesterday

The suspects were arrested for investigation of multiple counts of manslaughter and aiding illegal immigration, and are accused of belonging to a criminal organization based in Libya, from where the overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels set sail

'According to some of the witness accounts, these criminals allegedly each had a precise role,' the police statement said

Survivors: Officials said around 400 people (including those pictured) had been rescued from the water after a boat packed with 700 migrants capsized off the Libyan coast just before midday on Wednesday

Saved: A man from Bangladesh was among those who survived after the boat capsized in the Mediterranean

Children at risk: A toddler who was on the overcrowded boat before it capsized is cared for after being saved

Disaster: Some migrants swam while others climbed onto a rescue dinghy to wait for rescuers

Disaster: These migrants were rescued when their overcrowded fishing vessel capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. Up to 200 are feared dead

Latest migrant ship tragedy: Remarkable footage of the rescue showed survivors, clinging with their last strength to a life-belt, who are so widely dispersed, they are visible only as dark shapes on the horizon

Innocent lives lost: Many of the casualties were small children, according to rescue workers who condemned the shipwreck as a 'massacre' 

Thursday's incident: Just one day after Wednesday's tragedy, hundreds of migrants needed to be rescued from an over crowded smugglers' boat in the Mediterranean - again off the coast off Libya

Miracle: All the men, women and weeping children on board the smugglers' boat left stranded in the Mediterranean on Thursday were rescued without loss of life

Saved: A migrant is pulled onto the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship MV Phoenix after being rescued from an overloaded wooden boat on Thursday

Lucky: These men - and all of their fellow travelers - were saved from an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean on Thursday, just one day after 200 asylum seekers on another boat were feared drowned

Ordeal: Four rescued men look stricken from their ordeal after being saved on on an overcrowded boat off the coast of Libya on Thursday

Looking for new life: Migrants aboard the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship MV Phoenix wait to be transferred to the Norwegian ship Siem Pilot off the coast of Libya on Thursday

Uncertain future: Two young women were among the hundreds rescued from the Mediterranean on Thursday

A migrant child is brought onto the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship MV Phoenix after being rescued from an overloaded wooden boat on Thursday