Shark Attack Kills German Tourist in Marsa Alam

Tragedy strikes the beaches of Marsa Alam, as a 53-year old german National was attacked and killed by a shark. The shark attack occurred on Saturday 21^st March in the southern Red Sea Egyptian resort. The identity of the victim remains unknown; however the German embassy has been notified of the incident and areplanning to receive the victim's remains. We reached out to the embassy to ask for his identity, but were told that “For privacy reasons the identity of the victim cannot be disclosed.”

The news of this shark attack comes as at the worst of times, as it is no secret that Egypt is still trying to rebound from a devastating decline in tourism in the aftermath of the January 25^th uprising. Although tourism has said to be slowly returning, with Egypt claiming to achieve a $1.6bn growth in tourism income in 2014, it is still pales in comparison to revenue generated before 2011.

Shark attacks are nothing new to Egypt, as a series of attacks in Sharm El Sheikh had many claiming that the sharks were trained and released by Israel to kill. Obviously this conspiracy theory is beyond ridiculous, however we imagine if there are further attacks this summer, we won’t be surprised if these absurd theorist return claiming that this was ISIS who were taught by Israeli to train sharks to kill. The truth is that shark attacks are natural occuring unavoidable accident, as often it is simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

At this time are thoughts and prayers are with this German’s family and friends, and hope this unavoidable tragedy will not be repeated as beach season is official upon us.