Nine killed in vehicle rollover in Arizona

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Nine people were killed and 10 injured when a sports utility vehicle packed with suspected illegal immigrants overturned on a desert highway south of Phoenix, police said on Thursday.

Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said the vehicle ran off state route 79 on Thursday morning.

"The vehicle hit a wash at a high rate of speed and flipped over. ... People appear to have been thrown from the vehicle," Graves said. "We have a suspicion that the people involved were undocumented aliens."

Graves said the injured were flown to local hospitals.

Arizona straddles the busiest human and drug smuggling corridor into the United States from Mexico.

Two years ago, 10 people were killed when an SUV packed with illegal immigrants overturned on a desert road near Yuma in western Arizona.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor, editing by Alan Elsner)