Hong Kong Police discovered two more deaths of prostitutes on Monday, raising the killings of sex workers in the city to four in the past few days.

A police spokesman said the newly-found murdered women, aged 35 and 31, died in their flats in two districts in the northern New Territories on March 15.

About 12:45 a.m. (local time) on March 16 a friend lost contact with the 35-year-old and called police. Police officers found her unconscious outside the bedroom of a flat on Kwong Fuk Road. She had no superficial injury and the flat had been ransacked.

About 10:15 p.m. on March 15 the police found the 31-year-old collapsed inside a flat on Wai Yan Street after receiving a report from her friend. Her purse had been looted. She was sent to the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital where she was certified dead.

The police spokesman said the police are adopting a very open-minded approach and would rigorously pursue all lines of inquiries, saying any possibility that either one or more persons carried out these crimes could not be ruled out.

"With such grave crimes having taken place, we are taking them very seriously and are actively investigating," said police commissioner Tang King-shing.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 18, 2008)