FOLLOW US

They descended into the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean on a Thursday morning, five Italian divers with scientific credentials, research permits, and a boat named the Duke of York. By the time the alarm was raised, when they failed to surface hours later in rough weather some 100 kilometers south of the Maldivian capital, the ocean had already swallowed them whole.

Officials confirmed Monday that the bodies of four missing Italian divers have been located by a joint team of Finnish and Maldivian rescue divers — found not in open water, but inside the third and farthest section of a submerged cave in Vaavu Atoll, lying 60 meters below the surface. The fifth Italian victim's body had already been recovered near the cave's entrance shortly after the group vanished last Thursday.

The tragedy has claimed a sixth life as well: Staff Sgt. Mohamed Mahdhee, a Maldivian rescue diver who lost consciousness during the search operation Saturday and could not be revived. He was one of eight rescue divers who entered the water that day — and the only one who did not come back up on his own.

Into the Cave They Were Never Meant to Enter

The group entered the water at Vaavu Atoll on Thursday morning. Police reported the weather was rough. A yellow warning had been issued for passenger boats and fishermen in the area. When the divers failed to resurface, a search operation was immediately launched — one that would ultimately cost another man his life before the missing were found.

What investigators now know — and what casts a shadow of procedural complexity over the entire tragedy — is that the cave where the bodies were found was not part of the group's authorized research plan.

The team held a valid research permit from Maldivian authorities, covering several atolls including Vaavu, allowing dives to a maximum depth of 50 meters. The permit was valid through Sunday. The mouth of the cave, however, begins at 47 meters — and the four bodies were recovered from its deepest interior chamber, at 60 meters, well beyond what the permit covered and in a location that, according to Maldivian government spokesperson Mohamed Hossain Shareef, "was not mentioned in their proposal."

Who They Were

The five Italian victims represent a cross-section of academia and professional diving that makes the loss particularly acute.

Prof. Monica Montefalcone and research fellow Muriel Oddenino, both affiliated with the University of Genoa, were in the Maldives conducting scientific research into climate change's impact on marine biodiversity. Giorgia Sommacal — Prof. Montefalcone's own daughter and a student at the same university — was part of the group, as was Federico Gualtieri, a recent university graduate. The fifth victim, Gianluca Benedetti, served as the group's boat operations manager and diving instructor. His body was the first to be recovered, near the cave entrance, Italian media reported.

Only three of those who died were formally listed as researchers on the permit. Sommacal and Benedetti were not named in the documentation.