Understanding the Risks of Traveling to Egypt: Shark Attacks and Fatal Incidents at Red Sea Resorts

With more than 20 miles of beautiful beaches and luxurious hotels, the Egyptian coastline is a top destination for tourists looking for sunshine from all over the world.

However, beyond the sun and the sea, the Red Sea resorts in the country and their nearby beaches have a more dangerous side, with aggressive sharks causing deadly incidents in the waters.

Travelers, including young visitors and even a diplomat from the EU, have been attacked by these predators, leading to fatal outcomes that have raised concerns about the safety of a vacation to the sunny Egyptian shore.

Last year a Russian tourist was circled and savagely dragged underwater by a bloodthirsty tiger shark as he screamed ‘Papa! Help me!’.

Two families were left distraught last week when an Italian EU diplomat was mauled to death in front of his wife as his friend fought off the beast in an unsuccessful effort to save him.

But the tragic incidents stretch back over a decade, as in one bloody accident, a woman had a chunk of her buttock torn from her body when a shark launched its violent attack in popular Sharm El Sheikh.

Yet, the Red Sea remains a major tourist destination whose marine life make it popular with divers and Marsa Alam is an Egyptian coastal town known for its coral reefs and beaches.

But deadly shark attacks are a near-yearly occurrence in the Red Sea, where marine experts warn unregulated construction, overfishing, and irresponsible tourism practices contribute to changing the ecosystem and shark behaviour.  

Russian mauled to death by ‘meat grinder’ tiger shark

In June 2023, holidaymakers in one Red Sea resort in Hurghada, Egypt, were violently disturbed by the blood-curdling screams of a 23-year-old shouting ‘Papa! Help me’.

Russian tourist Vladimir Popov, 23, was viciously dragged under the water and killed by a tiger shark as his horrified father watched the water turn red with blood.

Footage captured of the horror incident shows the young man desperately trying to swim towards the shore, but he appears to be attacked by the shark while still in deeper waters.

His body is seen spinning in the water, and his legs raise above the surface – as terrified onlookers scream and shout for the man to swim.

‘Swim away, swim away! Quick! A shark!’ people can be heard shouting. 

The splashing in the water stops, and the man’s head returns to the surface. He appears in the video to be moving around in the water again, but only slowly.

He can be heard screaming ‘Papa’, pleading for help, as some of the water turns red.

As he does so, the shark’s body can be seen clearly at the surface. 

The long black shape circles around the man, and its fin and tail are seen protruding from the water.

The woman filming the horrific attack can he heard repeating ‘oh my god’ as the nightmare unfolds before her eyes. 

As she films, the shark turns around for another attack and swims at the man again, clamping its jaws around him, pulling him under the water.

The man’s head appears above the water one last time, and the shark’s body is seen writhing in the ocean as it appears to eat the man’s body and drag it further down.

One witness said: ‘The shark’s eating his remains now. There she is, eating his remains.’ 

Another said: ‘Right in front of my eyes, the shark ate the guy, the girl managed to escape. He took the blow from the shark. It’s a terrible thing, the remains of this man are lying there.’

The victim’s father Yury Popov told the 112 media outlet: ‘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.

‘This is an absolutely ridiculous coincidence, because it is a safe beach. There are ships and yachts around. It’s never happened there. They usually attack on wild beaches. It’s just some kind of evil fate.’ 

Gavin Naylor, Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said that the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba attract sharks due to them being very deep and generally steep-sided.

He said tiger sharks like the one who killed Mr Popov frequent warm waters and have been in the Red Sea for thousands of years.

Pensioner killed after shark rips off her arm and leg

In July 2022, a 68-year-old woman died after desperately trying to swim back to shore after a shark ‘bit off her arm and leg’ at a tourist hotspot in Egypt.  

The Austrian pensioner, Elisabeth Sauer, died of ‘painful shock’ – most likely a heart attack – after the attack at Sahl Hasheesh bay in the Red Sea.

Horror footage showed her clamouring toward safety with the aid of a flipper as the waters around her turned scarlet red.

Terrified onlookers made desperate attempts to distract the animal, but no one jumped in to help her.

After miraculously making her way back to land, doctors gave her CPR at the scene but she succumbed to her gory injuries minutes later in an ambulance.

Authorities closed the surrounding beaches for three days following the fatal incident.

The woman was reportedly married to an Egyptian man and lived in the country.

Footage captured witnesses on a nearby jetty record the woman’s survival attempt and comment on her predicament.

A group of Russian tourists are heard saying: ‘Where are the rescuers?

‘F***, she’s covered in blood. Holy s***.

‘Where’s the rescue team? ‘For f****’s sake.

‘Life guards? Where are the life guards? She’s going to f***ing die!’

Shark attacks in Egypt were thought to be rare – but the Red Sea has more than 44 species of the fish, some of which can be deadly. 

Bloodthirsty white tip shark tears chunk from woman’s buttocks

In December 2010, a female tourist was left seriously injured after an underwater predator sank its huge jaws into her flesh before ‘wagging her around’.

Olga Martsinko, 48, had been enjoying her holiday, floating on her back in the warm waters of the Red Sea in front of several sunbathers on a packed sandy beach.

The next moment, her nightmare began. Olga’s outstretched left hand touched something solid with a rough skin as it dived underneath her.

‘At first I thought it was a dolphin, but then I felt a sharp pain as it came up, sank its teeth into my arm and began to wag me around,’ she recounted from a hospital bed in Cairo.

‘It tried to pull me down with it into the sea, and I saw the huge jaws of a shark and a sharp fin beside me. The shark let me go for a second and I swam away. But it came back for more, biting me again and again from behind.

‘If I had not had my flippers on, it would have taken off both my legs.’ 

As it was, by the time Olga made it to the jetty, to be hauled to safety by other holidaymakers, she was terribly injured.

The white tip shark chasing her through the water had taken a chunk of the top of her left thigh and buttock. 

Her hand and arm were missing, and her blood had turned the sea red.

Olga had become another victim of the extraordinary spate of shark attacks at one of the world’s favourite resorts, Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh, where 1,000 kinds of exotic fish swim through 150 types of spectacular corals. 

EU diplomat battered by tiger shark at luxury Egyptian resort 

In December, Gianluca Di Gioia, 48, from Rome, had been snorkeling at a beach located in front of the glamorous Red Sea Sataya Resort on the coast of Marsa Alam with his friend.

The tourist, who worked at the European External Action Service, the diplomatic service of the European Union, was in the sea alongside his pal Giuseppe Fappani, 69, as they celebrated Di Gioia’s recent birthday.

But the trip took a horrific turn when the pair were approached by a tiger shark in the Egyptian waters, while they swam just 50metres from the beach in an area where the resort’s jetty allows tourists to access beyond the coral reef.

Fappani reportedly swam towards Di Gioia in a desperate bid to scare away the shark before he was bitten on the arms and legs.

In a stunning moment, Fappani reportedly managed to push the beast away for a brief moment before it furiously made its return. 

But only Fappani would make it back to the beachfront as Di Gioia was snapped up by the jaws of the predator as his wife remained helpless from the pier.

The Italian tourist’s injuries to his arms and legs were so severe, it was not known whether he would survive the attack.

The pair were then rushed to a hospital in Port Ghalib where Di Gioia tragically passed away, and Fappani was later discharged.

The attack – according to The Quasir Prosecutor’s Office – occurred ‘in deep waters outside the bathing area’, that is, beyond the coral reef, which should prevent or at least make it more difficult for sharks to access the area near the beach. 

‘Such incidents usually occur in spring or summer,’ said one of the local authorities following the case, emphasising the rarity of a shark attack this season.

Woman loses an arm after mistaking a shark for a tuna fish

A tourist in Egypt lost an arm in a horrific shark attack after allegedly mistaking the predator for a tuna fish in September 2023.

The female tourist, reportedly from Alexandria, had to have her left arm amputated after she was bitten while swimming with a friend.

She was rescued from the sea unconscious and was taken to hospital. Her condition was later described as ‘stable’.

Reports said swimmers on Laguna Beach in Dahab initially mistook a shark for a tuna.

Video showed the dramatic moment of her rescue as she was rushed to an ambulance.

Beachgoers fled from the sea after the attack at the Dahab resort, about 36 miles north of Sharm el-Sheikh.

A two-hour search with harpoons failed to locate the shark despite sightings, according to reports.

The beach in south Sinai was closed by the authorities in the wake of the attack.   

British holidaymaker watched shark tear swimmer apart

In April 2012, Ellen Barnes told how the sea turned red with blood as a killer shark tore a swimmer to death in front of her.

Barnes struggled to get back to the beach as the beast thrashed around in the water with its victim, a 70-year-old German woman, in its mouth at Sharm El Sheik, Egypt. 

‘I was being thrown around in the blood. The shark was thrashing and tearing at this poor woman and I could barely keep my head above the water it was so choppy,’ she told The Standard at the time.

‘The swimmer was screaming: Help me! Help me!’ in English. It was just spine-chilling. I just threw myself on to the beach.’

Barnes, a mother of two from Horsham, West Sussex, said: ‘They were useless and petrified. They waited five minutes until the attack was over and just watched until the corpse drifted into shore.’

The elderly tourist’s right arm was torn off and her thigh savaged while she was snorkeling.

Her mutilated body later washed up on the shore. 

Following the tragedy, doctors said the pensioner died from a ‘catastrophic’ loss of blood, and the incident came just days after four other divers were badly injured in a spate of similar attacks. 

How rare are shark attacks in the Red Sea?

In the past decade, there have been four confirmed fatalities due to shark attacks in the Red Sea, according to data compiled by the independent Shark Research Institute.

The last to occur happened in December 2024, in Marsa Alam and involved a 48-year-old Italian EU diplomat.

Egypt’s tourist hotspots, including Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh, boast some of the country’s most renowned beach destinations and attract tourists as well as divers with its offshore coral reefs.

However, these spots also seem to attract aggressive sharks, like the two unprovoked fatal attacks in Egypt in 2022.

Both took place in Hurghada, when an Austrian and a Romanian tourist were killed within days of each other. 

In June 2021, a 37-year-old Jordanian man was bit in the leg by a shark and survived. 

In December 2020, a German woman, 42, was savaged by a shark while diving in near Marsa Alam.

In October 2020 a 12-year-old Ukrainian boy on holiday in Egypt and his tour guide lost limbs after an attack by an oceanic whitetip shark. 

In August 2018, a 41-year-old Czech tourist died after being attacked 12 miles north of the town of Marsa Alam.

In 2010, five shark attacks took place at Sharm el Sheikh in the same number of days, seriously injuring three Russians and one Ukrainian and killing a German woman.  

Florida Museum data shows sixteen non-fatal and fatal shark attacks have been recorded in the Red Sea since 1975.

There have been seven fatal attacks since 2004, and eight non-fatal attacks along the coast since 1974, according to the data.

The majority of attacks were by oceanic whitetip sharks, which can grow up to 11 feet long and live for 25 years.

Gavin Naylor, Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said that the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba attract sharks due to them being very deep and generally steep-sided.

He explained: ‘This brings pelagic animals (sharks) that typically live off -shore (like Oceanic white-tip and silky sharks) closer in to the shore than they would otherwise be. 

‘There is also a lot of tourism in these areas- which means a lot of people in the water.

‘Additionally the behaviour of many of these species in the region, for reasons that are not currently clear, seem more habituated than is the case for the same species in other parts of the world.’ 

Habituation happens once animals learn that there is food in the area and can be seen in dive tourism operations which employ chum to bring sharks closer in as well as in places where food waste is dumbed close to shore, Mr Naylor added.