PHOENIX (AP) -- Four suspected illegal immigrants died while trying to escape police by jumping into an irrigation canal on an Arizona Indian reservation, authorities said Monday. A fifth person survived.

The five were among a group of suspected illegal immigrants who were stopped Sunday when Gila River Indian Community police saw their van driving erratically on the reservation south of Phoenix, said tribal spokeswoman Alia Maisonet.

She said the van initially stopped then pulled away as an officer got out of his car. The van stopped again when the driver saw a police car coming from another direction.

Maisonet said about 20 people got out and ran in different directions, with one group jumping a fence and into a canal that's about 30 feet wide and where the water was about seven feet deep at the time.

Three officers jumped into the canal after the group. They pulled out two people, including a woman who later died, Maisonet said. A man was found dead in the canal later Sunday.

Authorities found the bodies of two other men on Monday, she said, after the canal was partially drained.

Maisonet said 14 people, including the survivor from the canal, were turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which investigates immigrant smuggling and other immigration-related crimes.

ICE spokesman Vinnie Picard said the van is believed to have been a smuggling vehicle and that federal authorities are trying to identify the driver and any accomplices who may have been in the van. He said they're also working with Latin American officials to identify the four who died.

He said the group was made up primarily of people from Mexico and Guatemala.

The deaths were among the most recent to be linked to illegal immigrant smuggling in Arizona this year. Scores of illegal immigrants die each year while trying to sneak into the country through the state, the busiest illegal crossing point on the Mexican border, many in traffic accidents or after succumbing to the desert heat.

Earlier this year, nine people were killed when a smuggling vehicle veered off a highway about 15 miles south of Florence and flipped onto its roof.

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