By: Wayne D. Ayers II

Photo Credit: Daily Nigeria

The bodies of 26 young Nigerian women and girls were found in the Mediterranean Sea last weekend and taken to Italy, where officials said they were investigating how the women died.

Since retrieving these women bodies. Two men have been arrested and charged in Italy as investigators look into the deaths of 26 Nigerian women and girls, who are suspected to have been murdered while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

The men arrested have been named as Al Mabrouc Wisam Harar, from Libya, and Egyptian Mohamed Ali Al Bouzid.

The two men are accused of organising and trafficking at least 150 people on the two sunken boats, but prosecutors have not made a direct link between the two men and the women’s deaths, said Rosa Maria Falasca, chief of staff at Salerno’s prefecture.

The young women were estimated to be between the ages of 14 and 18, said Marco Rotunno, the communications officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy. Their bodies were found floating in the water by the Spanish Navy, and survivors on nearby rubber dinghies, which had partly capsized, told the authorities that they were Nigerian and had departed from Libya.

As of right now, no one has stepped forward to claim them as family members or friends.