After six days of intense search and recovery efforts, the bodies of three US soldiers, who went missing during a tactical training exercise in Lithuania, have been found on Monday.
The U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command said that the three soldiers' bodies were recovered together with their armoured vehicle trapped in a peat bog in a training ground just 10 kilometres away from the Belarusian border.
Search efforts were hampered by the conditions in the muddy forest terrain, through which US and Lithuanian armed forces had to dig with heavy construction equipment.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Eric Costello, from the US Navy Underwater Construction team said: "The conditions when we got out here on the site were not like anything that we’ve ever had to dive through before, so, just the amount of mud, diving in a peat bog, you know, just complete zero vis (vision), hard to move kind of diving. It's been an interesting experience for us."
A fourth soldier is still missing and hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers continued search and recovery efforts in the area on Monday.
Both the US Army and Lithuanian authorities have launched investigations into the causes of the incident.