Egypt has put its beaches in lockdown following a brutal shark attack that killed a 23-year-old man in front of his father.
Authorities have banned snorkelling, swimming and watersports until tomorrow, with beaches from the northern El-Gouna Resort to the south border of Abu Souma Bay being affected.
The tiger shark attack was at the Hurghada resort in Egypt, and witnesses report the victim’s girlfriend had been in the water at the time, while his father watched from ashore.
The distraught father, Yury Popov recalled horror while watching his son being pulled apart by the “meat grinder” as he screamed out: “Papa, save me!” Some holidaymakers scrambled from the water as horrified onlookers called out to Vladimir to swim away from the shark before he was mauled to death. Mr Popov said he would cremate his son and return his ashes to their native Russia.
A statement from Egypt’s Environment Ministry said: “Dr. Yasmin Fouad, the Minister of the Environment, directed the staff specialized in managing the shark attack incident on a pioneer of Hurghada beaches, to apply all policies applied globally to achieve maximum levels of safety for Red Sea shores and to take all possible measures to avoid the repetition of the shark attack incident again.”
The fishing team examined the fish that caused the incident to examine it to find out possible causes for the attack and whether it was the same fish that caused previous accidents.
The shark responsible has been handed over for research to find out the causes of its behavior and identify whether the animal is related to one that “caused several previous accidents”.
Last year saw another shark attack in Sahl Hasheesh that saw 68-year-old Austrian Elisabeth Sauer mauled in front of horrified onlookers at a resort in Sahl Hasheesh which is 30 minutes from Hurghada where Vladimir was killed.
A second woman, identified only as a Romanian national in her 40s, is also thought to have been killed in a similar attack just 650ft away from where Ms Sauer died, with her badly disfigured remains found on a nearby reef the same day.
Mr Popov, originally from Russia, recalled: “We went to the beach to relax. My son was attacked by a shark, it all happened in seconds. What kind of help can you give? This meat grinder happened in 20 seconds, he was just dragged under the water.”
Authorities are taking all possible measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future. As such, Egypt has implemented a temporary ban on water activities until experts can study the situation and determine if there is a larger concern at hand.