World3 min(s) read
Published 09:19 20 May 2026 GMT
In a heartbreaking message read out at a memorial service for two of the Italian divers who died in the Maldives this week, Giorgia Sommacal’s fiancé declared his everlasting love for his “happiness”.
Sommacal died alongside her mother, Monica Montefalcone, after they entered a murky, shark-infested cave 200 feet underwater last week.
At a Saturday service in the St. Francis of Assisi Church in their hometown, Genoa, bartender Federico Colombo, 26, poured his heart out over losing his fiancée and her mother in a note read to mourners.
In the message, he said: “The loss of Giorgia and Monica taught me something I perhaps couldn’t truly understand before: nothing in life can be taken for granted.
“I learned that we need to be more grateful for the present, because it’s the only thing we truly have.
“We should have the courage to love more, to say what we feel, to hug the people we love tightly, and to savor every moment, even the ones that seem trivial or silly.
“Because often, it’s those very moments that become the most precious memories.”
Reflecting on the sanctity of life, Colombo added: “Life moves so quickly and never warns us when something is about to end.
“Let’s hurry to love. We always love too little, too late.”
He ended his message saying: “Giorgia and Monica are our happiness. I love you and will carry you in my heart forever.”
Sommacal’s body, alongside Muriel Oddenino, 31, has yet to be recovered. The team of elite divers from Finland is hoping to retrieve the last two casualties in a complex recovery mission today.
Last week, the heartbroken fiancé told Italian newspaper ANSA that Sommacal’s eyes “lit up” when talking about the sea because she “loved diving more than anything else”.
He said: “It was a passion that was deeply rooted in her, something she was born for and truly gifted for.
“In the water, she seemed to feel free, in her natural element.”
Once the bodies of all five divers who lost their lives in the cave are recovered, they will be repatriated to Italy for autopsies.
Italian prosecutors have launched a culpable homicide probe into the tourists’ deaths, which will involve investigating the other Italian tourists who were vacationing aboard the Duke of York yacht with the divers.
