Two women in Italy who appear to have been for some reason lying on the ground in a cornfield after a night on the town died after they were run over by a tractor spraying pesticide.
The bodies of Hanan Nekhla, 32, and friend Sara El Jaafari, 28, were found in a cornfield between the communes of Ulteriano and San Gluliano in the city of Milan in the Italian region of Lombardy.
The two women were close friends who often went out together and, according to a statement by a cousin, the pair were originally with two male friends.
Both women, who are from Moroccan families living in the country, had decided to go out that evening after Hanan received a phone call from Sara to join her while she was out with two other friends at around 2 am.
It is unclear what happened during the night, and the last phone call from one of the victims was made around noon.
One of the badly injured girls called the emergency services and explained that she was hit by an agricultural vehicle and was injured while her friend had died.
The authorities searched for the pair using drones and a helicopter and the two bodies were found a day later.
Their bodies had visible signs of crushing, but no other injuries.
The police are trying to uncover whether the women were with their friends when the tragedy happened and if they left the scene instead of helping the victims or calling for assistance.
What is known from the investigation so far is that a 28-year-old Italian man was driving an agricultural vehicle that Friday morning spreading herbicide in the cornfield where the two victims were found. The man is now under investigation.
The autopsy on the corpses will be conducted at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pavia, and will include toxicological tests to discover whether the pair inhaled the sprayed substance, which could be a contributing factor to their death.
The investigation continues.