The bodies of two Italian divers have been recovered from an underwater cave network in the Maldives, according to local officials.

The two were part of a group of five who died last week, with one of the bodies recovered outside the caves on Friday. Efforts to recover the other four bodies were suspended over the weekend after a local military diver also died during the mission.

On Monday, the Maldives government said three Finnish diving experts, assisted by police and military personnel, located the bodies in the deepest section of the cave, at a depth of about 60m (200ft).

Maldives government spokesperson, Ahmed Shaam, said the three divers would recover the bodies and bring them to within 30m (nearly 100ft) of the surface, where the coast guard would take over before handing them to the police.

“As was previously thought, the four bodies were found inside the cave, not only inside the cave, but well inside the cave into the third segment of the cave, which is the largest part,” Mr Shaam said earlier.

He said that the four bodies were found “pretty much together”.

The Maldivian government is planning to recover the bodies of two other divers on Wednesday.

The five divers were identified as Monica Montefalcone, a marine ecologist at the University of Genoa; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal, a biomedical engineering student at the same university; Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow; Federico Gualtieri, a former student of the ecologist; and Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor.

The Maldives police said they had opened a criminal investigation into the incident. Authorities said they were examining whether the diving trip complied with safety regulations, including weather warnings.

The group of five had disappeared after entering an underwater cave system located about 50m (164ft) below the surface. In the Maldives, standard recreational diving is restricted to depths of 30m (98ft), with deeper dives requiring technical training and specialised gear.

Authorities said the coast guard was alerted around midday on Thursday. Later that evening, rescuers recovered one body from nearly 60m (196ft) underwater, which is significantly deeper than the divers were believed to have intended to reach.

The Maldivian government said the Italians were researchers rather than tourists and had been carrying out work in the area for several years.

On Saturday, the high-risk operation to recover the bodies had to be suspended following the death of a Maldivian diver from decompression sickness.

Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian National Defence Force, died of underwater decompression sickness after being transferred to a hospital in the capital on Saturday, a spokesperson said.