{"id":118968,"date":"2026-05-18T12:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=118968"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:15:37","slug":"bodies-of-missing-italian-divers-found-in-maldives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=118968","title":{"rendered":"Bodies of missing Italian divers found in Maldives"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The bodies of four Italian divers who went missing during a scuba diving accident in the Maldives last week have been found, Italian and Maldivian officials have confirmed to the BBC.<\/p>\n

One body, belonging to a fifth member of the group, had already been located after the incident on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Italian nationals were found inside a 60-metre-deep (197ft) cave in Vaavu Atoll by a joint team of highly trained Finnish and Maldivian divers, according to local authorities.<\/p>\n

A rescue diver also died on Saturday while searching for the bodies of the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther dives [are] to be carried out in the coming days to recover the bodies,\u201d Mohamed Hossain Shareef, a Maldivian government spokesperson, said in a message to the BBC.<\/p>\n

The incident is believed to be the worst single diving accident in the tiny Indian Ocean nation, a popular tourist destination because of its string of coral islands.<\/p>\n

Four of the Italian divers were part of a University of Genoa team, including professor of ecology Monica Montefalcone, her daughter and two researchers.<\/p>\n

It is believed that the four bodies were located in the same underwater cave where the military found the first body on the day of the accident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bodies of four Italian divers who went missing during a scuba diving accident in the Maldives last week have been found,Italian and Maldivian officials have confirmed to the BBC.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17313,1910,17998,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divers","category-international","category-maldives","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}