ROME, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Two young Italian women have been murdered in the tropical Atlantic island state of Cape Verde, the Italian foreign ministry said on Saturday.

Two bodies were found by local police on Friday on information given by a third Italian woman who said she escaped the attack in which her friends were killed.

The third woman, a 17-year-old identified as Agnese, told Italian TV by telephone that the three of them had gone to dinner on the island of Sal on Thursday with two local men who took them to a wood and beat the two girls to death with rocks.

Agnese said she was knocked unconscious but later recovered and went for help.

Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is an archipelago about 500 kilometres (310 miles) off the coast of Senegal where tourism is a vital part of the economy.

Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi said he was "shocked and astonished" by the news. Speaking to reporters while on an official visit to India, Prodi said: "I have never heard of Cape Verde having bad incidents of criminality."

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