Two teenager sisters have died while swimming at New York’s Coney Island Beach in Brooklyn. Aisha Mohammed, 18, and Zainab Mohammed, 17, both originally from Nigeria but now living in the Bronx, were reported missing on Friday night, July 5, in the area of Stillwell Avenue and Boardwalk West after they were seen entering the water and disappearing from view, the NYPD said.

Police say at around 8 p.m. Friday, the sisters were swimming at Stillwell & Boardwalk West on Coney Island when they disappeared.

Witnesses told WABC-TV that a rain storm began and most people at the beach took shelter, but the two young women went into the rough ocean water. A man tried to stop them but he couldn’t swim either, one witness said. It is unclear if the man knew the victims.

A relative of theirs told News 12 they were at the beach that day with six of their cousins. Police said that an emergency call for a water rescue came in at around 8.10pm. Officers arrived on the scene with emergency responders from the department’s aviation, harbor, scuba units conducting a search to find the teens. Divers eventually pulled both the young women from the water an hour later, police said.

They were both transported to NYC Health and Hospitals/Coney Island where they were pronounced dead. The investigation into the tragedy continues. The funeral service for sisters Zainab and Aisha Mohammad took place at 9:30 a.m on Tuesday, July 9, at the Yankasa Masjid Mosque.