Four women, three from Nigeria and one from Senegal, drowned while trying to cross illegally into Spanish territory and Senegalese police arrested another 26 would-be illegal immigrants, the authorities have said Monday.

"On Friday, the bodies of three young women washed up on the Camberene beach. On Saturday, a fourth body was found on the same beach," police spokesman Daouda Diop, in the Western town of Kayar, told the French News Agency (AFP) Monday.

Police said the women set out with a group of 30 people from Guero to the south of Dakar on sail boat last Thursday. Among them were the four young women who fell ill, and decided to turn back in a smaller boat, Diop explained. The smaller boat overturned and the women, all in their 20s, drowned.

On Saturday, the group of 26 would-be illegal immigrants -- mostly from Senegal and Gambia -- that the women started off with were arrested by police who found them off the coast of Kayar. Senegal is an important departure point for African immigrants trying to get into Europe by sea as they try to reach the nearby Spanish Canary Islands.