Italian police on Monday arrested a Libyan man and an Egyptian man in connection with the deaths of 26 Nigerian women and girls aged 14 to 18 in a shipwreck in the central Mediterranean at the weekend. The men, aged 30 and 22 respectively, were suspected of having skippered the boat.

The victims were among 400 migrants offloaded by Spanish ship Cantabria at Salerno. Salerno prosecutors accuse the two men of "human trafficking and of organizing the transportation of at least 150 people aboard a rubber dinghy which was subsequently intercepted in international waters by the Spanish ship that rescued the migrants during the first search-and-rescue operation."

The 400 migrants, including the bodies of 26 women were recovered during four different search-and-rescue operations off Libya's coast. An autopsy will be conducted on the bodies of the 26 young women and girls. The two suspected traffickers have been identified as Mohamed Ali Al Bouzid, an Egyptian national, and Al Mabrouc Wisam Harar, a Libyan. The investigation is being carried out by prosecutors and police in Salerno as well as the city's port authority.

Migrants who were on the boat told investigators that at least 10 people who were aboard the rubber dinghy rescued in the first operation fell in the water due to rough seas and are still missing.

Meanwhile comments were posted to the Facebook page of Salerno Mayor Vincenzo Napoli against the migrants after Napoli had written a post to express his sadness over the death of the young women. Some anonymous commenters said the migrants "have to go" and "They are too many, that's it," while another one said, "There is no work for Italians, but there are jobs, houses for refugees - this should be stopped."

Napoli condemned the comments, saying that they represented a small minority but still "cause concern."