Five divers died in the Thursday, May 14 accident, with the first body found hours later
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Giorgia Sommacal; Monica Montefalcone; Gianluca Benedetti.Credit : Giorgia Sommacal/Instagram; University of Genoa; Fotogramma/ROPI via ZUMA Press
The bodies of four Italian tourists who went missing while scuba diving in the Maldives last week have been found.
Five divers went missing during the incident in an underwater cave on Thursday, May 14, with one found hours later.
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The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) shared on X on Monday, May 18, “The bodies of four missing divers has been located inside the Vaavu atoll cave on a joint search & recovery operation conducted by MNDF CG, @PoliceMv and a team of experts arranged by the Italian Government. Further dives to be carried out in the coming days to recover the bodies.”
The bodies of the tourists were found inside a 197-foot-deep cave in Vaavu Atoll by a team of Finnish and Maldivian divers, local authorities confirmed to the BBC. It’s thought they were found in the same cave where the first body was found.
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Four of the divers had ties to the Università di Genova in Italy: Professor Monica Montefalcone, her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, research assistant Muriel Oddenino, and recent graduate Federico Gualtieri.
They were joined by Gianluca Benedetti, a boat operations manager and diving instructor.
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Speaking with local newspaper La Repubblica, Montefalcone’s husband said that his wife “would never have put the life of our daughter or other kids at risk,” and suggested that “something must have happened.”
On Saturday, May 16, a rescue diver also died while searching for the bodies in what is thought to be the worst single diving accident in the country.
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He was later identified as Staff Sergeant Mohamed Mahdhee. A spokesperson for the Maldivian government told the BBC he was part of a group of eight rescue divers.
The other divers realized he wasn’t with them when they surfaced, and they went back into the water to find him unconscious.
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Per Genoa-based newspaper Il Secolo XIX, authorities have launched an investigation to find out why the group descended below the 30-meter diving limit in the island country. The diving license of the Duke of York yacht, which coordinated the trip, has been suspended indefinitely, too.
PEOPLE has reached out to the MNDF and Italy’s foreign ministry for further updates but did not immediately hear back.
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