ATHENS (DPA) - Police have discovered another body in the search for the victims of a serial killer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

This brought the number of victims found so far in an unprecedented series of murders for Cyprus to seven.

Divers found the body on Wednesday afternoon (June 12) in a suitcase that had been sunk in a quarry pool, a police spokesman told Cypriot state broadcaster (RIK) on Thursday morning. It was apparently the body of a young girl.

On Tuesday, the corpse of a woman had been found. By all accounts, it was the remains of a woman from the Philippines, but this still had to be confirmed by forensics, the spokesman said.

The alleged perpetrator, a 35-year-old captain in the Cypriot National Guard, has so far confessed to seven murders, according to police.

The victims - five women and two children - are believed to come from Asia and Romania. The women had worked as housekeepers in Cyprus.

The case has gripped Cyprus since April.

So far, the police have found bodies in an abandoned ore mine and in the quarry pool. Officials do not expect any more bodies to come to light, according to Cypriot media reports early on Thursday.

Criticism of the authorities led the Cypriot justice minister to resign in May, while the police chief was fired.

Criticism was prompted above all because the missing were foreigners and people on the margins of society and the police had therefore not been active enough in tracing them despite missing person notifications having been made from 2016.