Two women, including an Austrian according to Vienna, were killed by a shark near Hurghada on the Red Sea, where several beaches have been closed since the incident, Egyptian authorities said on Sunday. “Two women were attacked by a shark while swimming in the Sahel Hachich region, south of Hurghada“Said the Egyptian Ministry of the Environment, adding that an investigation had been opened.
“All activity is prohibited for three days” on the beaches in the south of Hurghada, in the south-east of Egypt, indicated Friday an order of the governor of this region of the Red Sea, Amr Hanafi. The Austrian Foreign Ministry for its part confirmed to AFP “the death of an Austrian national in Egypt”, without giving further details. The governor’s decree mentions “an Austrian tourist having had her left arm torn off” by a shark.
According to the Austrian press agency APA, the victim, originally from the western region of Tyrol, was 68 years old and had been on vacation in Egypt since the beginning of June with his Egyptian companion. On social networks, many users shared a video – of which AFP could not verify the authenticity, date or place – showing a swimmer in difficulty before that appeared around her a pool of blood. Sharks in the Red Sea very rarely attack swimmers if they do not exceed the authorized limits.
Not a first
In 2018 a Czech tourist was killed by a shark off an Egyptian beach in the Red Sea, as was a German in 2015 and in 2010 a German woman died and four other tourists were seriously injured in attacks of sharks off a beach in Sharm el-Sheikh, the most famous of Egyptian seaside resorts. Egypt, caught between inflation and devaluation, relies heavily on the shores of the Red Sea, which welcome 65% of tourists visiting the country.
Egyptian tourism is trying to recover from ten years of political turmoil, since the “revolution” which toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the Covid-19 pandemic.