This is an English translation of Aman Haleem's feature story for Adhadhu.
The tragic incident involving five Italian divers who died inside a cave in Vaavu Atoll’s Devana Kandu has captured global attention. Italian prosecutors are already preparing for a major investigation into potential homicide, while international media outlets pursue the truth behind the disaster.
While Italian authorities and the global press scramble to uncover what happened to the tourists, a heavy silence surrounds the death of the Maldivian soldier who dove to find them.
Information from all sources describes MNDF Sergeant Mohamed Mahdhee, 44, as one of the Coast Guard’s finest and most courageous divers—an experienced serviceman who had participated in numerous search, rescue, and recovery missions.
Last Saturday, Mahdhee dove with his team into the cave amidst the turbulent currents of Vaavu Atoll, following orders to complete the mission of locating the Italian tourists. However, this dive would be his last. Although seven other military divers entered the water with him, Mahdhee did not surface with them.
The government told foreign media that the divers only realized Mahdhee was missing after they returned to the surface. Following a rescue operation to retrieve him from the depths, Mahdhee was transported to a hospital in Male', where he was pronounced dead. That same night, without a forensic autopsy, Mahdhee was buried with full military honors as a national hero.
Since that day, the government and the MNDF have drawn a thick veil of silence over the circumstances of Mahdhee’s death. Not only have they refused to answer questions, but both the Police and the military have declined to provide any information beyond the brief statements given to foreign media. When questioned, officials simply direct inquiries to the President’s Office.
The strongest evidence of this silence over Mahdhee’s death is the live television interview given by Chief of Defence Force Ibrahim Hilmy and Coast Guard Commandant Mohamed Saleem following the incident. In an interview with the state broadcaster lasting nearly an hour, neither official mentioned Mahdhee's name even once.
While the silence may be an attempt to deflect attention, the public continues to demand answers across social media platforms. These questions arise from glaring contradictions in the accounts provided regarding the events of that dive.
What happened in the darkness of the cave?
A fundamental principle of diving Standard Operating Procedures is the "buddy system." Divers work in pairs to ensure life-support redundancy and immediate assistance. This is a strict rule in both recreational and military diving.
However, sources who spoke to Adhadhu state that if Mahdhee’s absence was only noticed after the team surfaced—as reported in the media—then operational protocols were completely broken. If Mahdhee was diving as part of an assigned pair, why did they separate? At what point did they lose contact? Where was his dive buddy when Mahdhee encountered trouble? What was the buddy, upon whom Mahdhee’s redundancy plan depended, actually doing?
Unverified information circulating on social media paints a different picture. These reports suggest that after the military divers surfaced and reported Mahdhee was still in the cave, it was Marine Police divers who went down to find him. It is understood that these police divers held only recreational certifications, lacking the advanced clearance held by military divers.
Marine Police divers reportedly recovered Mahdhee from a deep section of the cave’s second chamber. A source familiar with the operation told Adhadhu that the dive conducted that day was the first attempt to reach the cave’s third chamber. The source noted that on previous days, the military had only explored the first and second chambers to lay tether lines or guide ropes.
Another confidential source told Adhadhu that Mahdhee actually entered the third chamber, the deepest part of the cave. He reportedly lost consciousness just as he was exiting back into the second chamber. His dive buddy attempted to retrieve him but was unable to do so. Fearing they would also run out of air, the buddy was forced to leave Mahdhee in the chamber and surface alone.
"Mahdhee lost consciousness inside the cave. His support diver tried to pull him out. However, due to their own gas limits and the terrifying onset of a sudden silt-out [zero visibility caused by disturbed sediment], they couldn't get him out and were forced to surface alone to save their own life," the source said.
If even a fraction of these accounts is confirmed, the government’s official narrative and timeline would completely collapse. This raises difficult but necessary questions: Who authorized the Coast Guard unit to enter this dark cave without adequate technical training or equipment? And what was the redundancy plan if a diver lost consciousness?
Technical recovery protocols dictate that standby divers must be ready with gas switches, stage cylinders must be placed at the exit, and clear "hand-off" plans must exist. The military’s conduct suggests a chaotic, rushed operation where all such procedures were sidelined.
Contradictions in the "Decompression Sickness" claim
The government’s narrative to foreign media attempted to categorize Mahdhee’s death within specific parameters. Chief Spokesperson Mohamed Shareef (Mundhu) told international outlets that Mahdhee died from decompression sickness (DCS) after being taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Despite this claim, Adhadhu has learned that Mahdhee had no pulse when he was pulled to the surface. He failed to regain consciousness even after CPR was administered.
More concerning than the incident itself is the fact that the government’s narrative contradicts the clinical realities of decompression sickness. Given the timeline from his distress to the pronouncement of death, it is more likely that Mahdhee suffered from a Cerebral Arterial Gas Embolism (CAGE). If this is the case, the government has misled the public.
To understand the depth of this deception, one must look at the clear differences between these two physiological conditions.
A prominent doctor who spoke to Adhadhu explained that decompression sickness is an injury related to gas solubility. It occurs when a diver stays at depth for a long time, causing nitrogen to be absorbed into the tissues. If they skip decompression stops while ascending, those gases turn into bubbles in the blood and joints over several hours.
In contrast, the doctor described CAGE as a sudden, violent trauma caused by pulmonary over-inflation. If a diver panics, suffers an equipment failure, or loses control and ascends while holding their breath, the air inside the lungs expands rapidly as the surrounding water pressure drops.
This causes the delicate alveoli in the lungs to rupture. The expanding gas enters the pulmonary capillaries directly, travels through the heart, and goes straight to the brain’s blood vessels. This blocks the cerebral arteries, cutting off oxygen to brain tissue and causing immediate unconsciousness, seizures, and death within minutes of surfacing.
The available timeline indicates that Mahdhee did not suffer from delayed joint pain or bubble formation hours after the dive. He ascended from the depths far too quickly. The doctor who spoke to this newspaper stated that Mahdhee was likely dead by the time he was pulled from the water.
This brings us back to the questions the government and relevant authorities must answer: Why are they trying to claim Mahdhee died of DCS at the hospital? What secrets is the government trying to hide by concealing the true cause of death?
A repeat of the Italian divers' fate?
There is a tragic irony in Mahdhee’s sacrifice. He was sent on a mission because divers without adequate training and equipment had become trapped underwater. The military command then sent Mahdhee down in the same manner—without proper training and with entirely unsuitable equipment.
MNDF Coast Guard divers are operationally certified to a maximum depth of 50 meters. Sending them to 60 meters on ordinary compressed air, without the helium-based trimix required to clear the mental fog of nitrogen narcosis at such depths, was a catastrophic error by the military command.
Having made this mistake, the military command now seems intent on burying the truth. While Italy prepares a massive investigation into the loss of its citizens, our own soldier was buried without even confirming how he died. The government is treating Mahdhee’s death as an operational liability.
The strategy is clear: maintain a media blackout, ignore questions, and wait for the news cycle to move on. But Mahdhee’s story cannot be suppressed so easily. This is a national matter that demands an independent investigation to hold those responsible accountable.
The only way to uncover the truth is through an immediate independent inquiry, perhaps involving international experts. It must be determined who authorized the dive, why the buddy system failed, and why the Coast Guard—the guardians of our seas—sent divers down without training or portable recompression chambers on site.
This truth is owed to the memory of Sergeant Mahdhee, a loyal serviceman who gave his life for this country. Mohamed Mahdhee did not die because of incompetence or natural causes. He died because the institution he swore to serve failed to protect him. They may have buried Mahdhee and covered him with earth, but for his sake, we will not let this incident be buried in silence.
