Rome — Italy’s Foreign Ministry said Monday rescuers have located the bodies of four Italian divers who were believed to be deep inside an underwater cave in a Maldive atoll.
Searches had resumed on Monday after being suspended following the death of a local military diver during a perilous mission to try to reach them.
The five Italian divers were believed to have died while exploring a cave at a depth of about 160 feet in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday, according to Italy’s Foreign Ministry. The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 98 feet.
The body of one Italian – a diving instructor – was found earlier outside the cave.
Maldives President’s Office via Reuters
Three Finnish divers had arrived in the Maldives Sunday to draw up a fresh plan in the search for the bodies of the other four, who were believed to be inside the cave system.
Maldives presidential spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search was suspended after Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian National Defense Force, died of underwater decompression sickness after being transferred to a hospital in the capital on Saturday.
Mahudhee was buried with military honors in a funeral attended by President Mohamed Muizzu on Saturday night. The diver was part of the group that had briefed Muizzu on a rescue plan when he visited the search site on Friday.
Shareef said Sunday that the three Finnish divers, experts in deep and cave diving, joined the Maldives coastguard in a meeting aimed at mapping a new search strategy.
Rough weather had repeatedly hampered rescue efforts.
Initial teams had already dived to identify and mark the entrance to the cave system where the Italians disappeared. The cause of the deaths remains under investigation.
The victims have been identified as Monica Montefalcone, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Genoa; her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, according to the Maldivian government.
Benedetti’s body was the one recovered on Thursday from near the mouth of the cave.
Montefalcone and Oddenino were in the Maldives on an official scientific mission to monitor marine environments and study the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity, the University of Genoa said in a statement Friday. However, the scuba diving activity during which the deadly accident occurred was not part of the planned research and was “undertaken privately,” it said.
Greenpeace via AP 
The statement also said the two other victims — student Sommacal and recent graduate Gualtieri — were not involved in the scientific mission.
Carlo Sommacal, Montefalcone’s husband and Giorgia’s father, expressed doubts over the accident, saying that “something must have happened down there” given his wife and daughter’s extensive experience.
Speaking to Italian TV, he described Montefalcone as a careful and highly disciplined diver who would never put her daughter or other colleagues at risk.
The Italian tour operator that managed the diving trip denied authorizing or knowing about the deep dive that violated local limits, its lawyer told Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Saturday.
Orietta Stella, representing Albatros Top Boat, said the operator “did not know” the group planned to descend beyond the legal limit. That threshold requires special permission from Maldivian maritime authorities and the tour operator “would have never allowed it,” she said.
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