The boyfriend of a diver who was killed during an expedition in the Maldives has declared he will keep waiting for her as he ‘still can’t understand’ her death.
Giorgia Sommacal was one of five Italian nationals who died during a cave-diving mission in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday.
Her mother, ecology expert Monica Montefalcone; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, also lost their lives.
Sommacal’s boyfriend, Federico Colombo, has since told the Italian media he was eagerly anticipating her return home.
He said: ‘She was due back on the 24th, for my birthday, and I couldn’t wait for her to arrive. I’ll wait until then because I still can’t understand what happened.’
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Colombo, a 26-year-old bartender, had been dating Sommacal for two years and eight months and saw her ‘as my [future] wife, the mother of my children’.
He explained Sommacal was due to graduate from the University of Genoa – where her late mother was an associate professor – this year, before they took a trip to Egypt with her family.
But the young couple’s plans were abruptly shattered when Sommacal’s father, Carlo Sommacal, visited the bar where Colombo worked and delivered some painful news.
‘He came here to the bar and told me. I still can’t process what happened. She certainly wants me to move on with my life, but now I don’t know how to react, how to move on.’
Colombo told Italian outlet Corriere Della Sera that he had last heard from Sommacal ‘a few moments before she dived.’
He said: ‘She was thrilled, as always. She told me that as soon as she surfaced, the first thing she’d do was send me photos of the Maldivian depths.
‘I waited for those shots. But they never arrived. Then her father, Carlo, told me about the tragedy. My world fell apart.’
Speaking of his relationship with Montefalcone, he added: ‘She was like a second mother to me. And the relationship between her and Giorgia was unique. They were incredibly close.’
The body of diving instructor Benedetti was the first to be found last week near the mouth of the cave, before rescue efforts were called off amid rough weather conditions and following the death of local military diver Mohamed Mahudhee during recovery efforts.
Authorities believe the other four entered the cave before they lost their lives.
Two of the remaining four bodies have now been recovered, and the remaining two are expected to be retrieved from the water next week.
Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, offered his condolences to Mr Mahudhee’s family and said everything possible would be done to bring the bodies of the victims home.
The diving limit in the Maldives is 30m. However, the group is understood to have died at a depth of around 50m below the surface.
The Italian tour operator that managed the diving trip has denied authorising or knowing about the group’s deep dive, which exceeded local limits, its lawyer told Italian local publication Corriere della Sera.
In a statement on Friday, the University of Genoa said Ms Montefalcone and Ms Oddenino had travelled to the Maldives on an official research trip to monitor marine environments and study the effects of climate change on tropical biodiversity.
The scuba diving trip was not a part of the trip and was ‘undertaken privately’, the statement added, and the other two victims were not part of the official research trip.
An investigation is ongoing.