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Maldivian authorities suspended the search for four Italian divers believed to be deep inside an underwater cave in Vaavu Atoll after a Maldivian military diver died during a mission to try to reach them, a government spokesman said Saturday.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said a group of five Italian divers died while exploring a cave at a depth of about 50 meters (160 feet) on Thursday. The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 30 meters (98 feet), and the incident has sparked debate over whether the dive fell within authorized limits. Authorities said the cause of the deaths of the Italians remained under investigation.
Presidential spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search was halted after Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian National Defense Force, died of underwater decompression sickness. He said Mahudhee had been transferred to a hospital in the capital, and officials were awaiting additional specialist help. Shareef said search planning would be revisited after the arrival of three Finnish divers—experts in deep and cave diving—on Sunday.
Mahudhee was scheduled to be buried with military honors after funeral arrangements for Saturday night, with President Mohamed Muizzu expected to attend. Shareef also said the diver had been part of the group that briefed Muizzu on the rescue plan when the president visited the search site on Friday.
“The death goes to show the difficulty of the mission,” Shareef said, as rough weather repeatedly hampered rescue efforts. Search operations on Saturday involved eight local divers who worked in shifts. Initial teams had already dived to identify and mark the entrance to the cave system where the Italians disappeared, but officials said search decisions were constrained by factors including oxygen and decompression risk.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said everything possible would be done to bring the victims home. He also offered condolences for Mahudhee’s death during the rescue efforts. Authorities said the cave system was divided into three large chambers connected by narrow passages, and recovery teams explored two of the chambers on Friday before the search was limited.
Benedetti’s body was recovered on Thursday, found near the mouth of the cave. Officials said authorities believed the remaining four had entered the cave. The Maldivian government identified the victims 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.
The University of Genoa said 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. It said scuba diving during which the deadly accident occurred was not part of the planned research and was “undertaken privately.” The university said the other two victims—Sommacal and recent graduate Gualtieri—were not involved in the scientific mission.
Carlo Sommacal, Montefalcone’s husband and Giorgia’s father, told Italian television he had doubts about what happened, saying “something must have happened down there” given his wife and daughter’s experience. He described Montefalcone as a careful, disciplined diver who would not put her daughter or other colleagues at risk.
Separately, the Italian tour operator that manages the Maldives’ diving trip denied that it had authorized or known about a deep dive that would have exceeded local limits. In comments provided to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Saturday, attorney Orietta Stella said the operator Albatros Top Boat “did not know” the group planned to descend beyond 30 meters. She said the threshold requires special permission from Maldivian maritime authorities and that the operator “would have never allowed it.” Stella said the dive went far beyond what was planned for a scientific cruise focused on coral sampling at standard depths, and that the equipment used appeared to be standard recreational gear rather than technical equipment suited for deep cave diving.
Stella also clarified that Albatros only marketed the cruise, and neither owned the vessel nor employed the locally hired crew. The Maldives Tourism Ministry said it suspended the operating license of the vessel “Duke of York” pending an investigation. Officials said about 20 other Italians on the same expedition were safe, and Italy’s embassy in Colombo was providing assistance aboard the vessel while contacting the Red Crescent, which offered to deploy volunteers to provide psychological aid.
In response to the halted search, authorities said experts from Finland would arrive Sunday to help “rethink their search strategy,” after Mahudhee’s death raised new constraints for rescuers working in and around the cave system.