Shark attack in Hurghada: Shark caught and taken to the lab – “I want to determine the causes of the attack”

The 74-kilometre stretch of coastline at Dream Beach in Hurghada, Egypt, was closed until Sunday after a shark was injured on Thursday. He attacked a 23-year-old Russian king. Vladimir Popov had no chance: in front of the amazed looks of his family and other swimmers, a shark circled the Russian and then pulled him under the water. Popov died as a result of the attack.

Swimming, snorkeling and other water sports activities are currently prohibited at Dream Beach, although the Egyptian Ministry of Environment has since announced on Facebook that the shark has been caught. Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad wrote that the animal was taken to a laboratory “to find out the reasons for the rare attack.”

Videos circulated on social media showing men pulling the shark out of the water onto land. “Given the abnormal behavior of the shark and the fact that humans have been attacked by this type of shark before, a specialized task force has captured the animal to study it and determine the possible causes of the attack,” it said on Facebook. Above all, experts are wondering if it could be the same shark that caused the previous attacks.

In 2022, two deadly shark attacks occur in Hurghada within a few days, killing an Austrian and a Romanian tourist. In 2018, a Czech tourist was killed by a shark on the Red Sea beach, and in 2015 a German tourist was the victim.
Indeed, in 2010, a German was killed and four foreign tourists were wounded in a series of five attacks within five days, unusually close to the coast of the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.