Czech man dies after Red Sea shark attack off Egyptian coast (unlike 2010, they probably won't blame Mossad)
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A Czech tourist has been killed in a shark attack off the coast of an Egyptian Red Sea resort, the first such incident in the country since 2015.
The man was swimming off the beach in Marsa Allam on Friday when the shark struck, a Czech foreign ministry official told The Telegraph.
Local media reported that only some of his remains washed up on shore.
The Czech tourist was holidaying with his family in the popular Red Sea tourist destination. They have since returned home and are waiting for his remains, the Czech official said.
A local newspaper, Al-Mal, reported that Egypt's environment ministry, which would take part in investigating such attacks, had posted then promptly deleted a statement on its Facebook page sharing details of the mauling.
An environment ministry official, Samah Abdo, refused to comment or even confirm whether her ministry had issued then retracted a statement.
Egyptian authorities are especially sensitive towards any threat to the vital tourism industry, which is picking up again after years of unrest devastated the key revenue sector.
A German woman was killed in the 2015 shark attack.
A hotel receptionist in Marsa Allam told The Telegraph that tourists were still free to swim in the sea, and that they had received no instructions to restrict access to beaches.
Egypt's worst spate of shark attacks took place in 2010, when what was believed to have been Oceanic Whitetip Sharks mauled five tourists in a week, killing one of them.
The slow-swimming shark, which can reach up to four metres long, is not as infamous as its larger cousins the Great White and Tiger Sharks, but the species is believed to have killed hundreds of people after ship wrecks. It is common in the Red Sea.
An Egyptian official at the time said "it was not out of the question" that the Israeli spy agency, the Mossad, was behind the maulings.
The official, South Sinai governor Mohamed Shousha, later retracted that theory following much derision.
Investigators found that the shark had been attracted to the beach by illegal feeding.
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