A Russian teenager was killed by a shark off the coast of Egypt’s Red Sea city of Hurghada, official sources said on Thursday.

And the Egyptian Ministry of Environment announced in a statement on its official Facebook page that “a beachgoer was attacked by a tiger shark, which led to his death.”

While the ministry did not provide details about the victim, media in Moscow confirmed that he was a Russian in his third decade.

“At three o’clock in the afternoon local time (12:00 noon GMT), there was a shark attack on the beach of Dream Beach (central Harghada), which led to the death of a citizen,” Tass news agency quoted him as saying. According to Viktor Vorobiev, Consul General of Russia in Hurghada, Rossi F.E. Popov, born in 1999.

The diplomat pointed out that the victim was “not a tourist, but a permanent resident of Egypt”.

In turn, the Russian Consulate in Hurghada urged Russian tourists – posted on its official channel on the Telegram app – to be careful while in the water and strictly adhere to any swimming ban imposed by local authorities. .

Social media users in Egypt widely circulated a video they said was taken from the beach in Hurghada when the crash happened.

Cessation of water activities

The tape shows a man struggling in the open ocean, with the fins of the shark that attacked him floating on the surface of the water near him.

In the background, a woman’s voice screams, “Oh my god, what is this?!” A cry for help is heard from afar. A few minutes later, the shark and the man disappeared under the water.

The environment ministry confirmed that its special teams had “captured the fish that caused the accident” and “in light of the unusual behavior of the shark that caused the accident and the incidents of attacks on humans”. Sharks of this type have occurred before.”

He indicated that all water activities in the region would be suspended for two days from Friday within the framework of “relevant international protocols” while trying to determine the “possible causes” of the attack.

Sharks live in the Red Sea, but they rarely attack tourists unless they exceed the permitted limits.

Two Austrian and Romanian tourists died in a similar shark attack in July 2022.

In 2018, the remains of a Czech tourist were found on Marsa Alam beach, overlooking the Red Sea, after an official confirmed he had decided to swim in a shark-infested area.

And in 2015, a German tourist in his fifties was killed by a shark while swimming in the tourist town of Guzer in the country’s southeast.