The Egyptian government prompted to suspend activities in Egypt's Red Sea coastal area after two shark attacks over the weekend killed two tourist women.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said that a shark attacked the victims while swimming in the Red Sea near Hurghada, a beach resort town.
The incident initiated the governor of the wider Red Sea Governorate, Maj. Gen. Amr Hanafi to suspend all water activities in the area for three days, per CBS News.
The environment ministry also disclosed that they have assembled a group of experts that will determine the reasons behind the shark attacks. It reported that the investigation is undergoing "to find out precisely the reasons for the behavior of the shark that attacked the two victims."
The ministry also expressed its "deepest condolences to the families of the two victims" and thanked "all concerned parties for their support."
Authorities Confirm Nationalities of the Victims Confirmed
An Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed Monday that an Austrian citizen from Tyrol died in Egypt but did not provide additional information citing "reasons of data protection and confidentiality." The Austrian embassy in Cairo has contacted the family of the victim.
The death of a Romanian woman, who was vacationing in Hurghada, was also verified to ABC News on Monday by a Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative. According to the spokesperson, who did not offer any additional information, the Romanian embassy in Cairo is in touch with Egyptian officials, and Romanian authorities are currently locating the relatives of the deceased.
It is still undefined if the same shark attacked the two women.
On Friday, social media users shared a video showing a swimmer struggling with a pool of blood around her. The authenticity of the videos is yet to be verified by authorities.
Lots of Sharks in the Red Sea But Swimming Is Still Allowed
Due to the diverse and colorful indigenous marine life, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, two of Egypt's most well-known beach resorts, are also popular with European visitors.
Shark attacks on visitors swimming in designated locations are rare, although sharks are widespread in the Red Sea, as per a report from Euronews.
In a shark attack in 2020, a young Ukrainian boy and an Egyptian tour guide both suffered severe injuries. In 2018, a Czech tourist off the coast of Egypt was killed.
In 2010, a wave of shark attacks off Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula, across the Red Sea from Hurghada, left one German tourist dead and numerous more injured.
According to a feature report from BBC, recent studies reveal the rising number of incidents of shark attacks in some areas of the world. In the past 20 years, shark attack rates in the eastern US and southern Australia, shark attack rates doubled.
Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, which maintains the International Shark Attack File, said that shark attacks "are strongly correlated to the number of people and number of sharks in the water at the same time."
"The more sharks and people there are in one place, the greater the chance of them bumping into each other," he said.
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