Three days of mourning was declared in Marbella, Spain, a city on the Mediterranean coast where three Turkish nationals drowned on Monday.

Two hearing-impaired students aged 18 and 19 and their teacher, 29, drowned when they went swimming at Marbella's Venus Beach. A third student, Hurşit Özbay, 18, was rescued.

Şakir Çelik and Serdar Fidan were in Marbella with their teacher Ümit Nalbant as part of a 10-person delegation from Turkey that attended a vocational training program for disabled individuals in Spain funded by the European Union. They went for a swim at Marbella's La Venus beach along with a third student, but the group went missing amid large waves soon afterward. Locals rushed to help and recovered bodies of Çelik, Fidan and Nalbant while Özbay was rescued with injuries. Anadolu Agency reported that the students were only dipping their feet into the water when they were dragged away by a sudden surge of waves. The three bodies are scheduled to be flown to Turkey on Tuesday.

Marbella declared threes day of mourning following the deaths while Mayor Angeles Munoz expressed his condolences to the victims' families via Twitter. Spanish media outlets pointed out that there were no lifeguards on the beach at the time of the incident and no flag indicating the risk of drowning. Municipality official Felix Romero acknowledged a lack of measures and attributed it to it being the off-season, noting that the beach would be officially opened on July 15. A Turkish official told media outlets that Nalbant was not swimming at the time of the incident and jumped into the water to rescue the students when he spotted them drowning. Three Turks drowned and one was rescued Monday near a beach in Spain's southern Mediterranean city of Marbella, Spanish officials said.

Spanish police have launched an investigation. Turkey's Ambassador to Spain Ayşe Sinirlioğlu said she was in contact with Spanish authorities, as well as the Turkish group, and added that she would send a diplomat to the area.