Before being devoured by a shark in Egypt, a man screamed “Papa, save me” in front of his grieving father and startled spectators.
The tiger shark killed 23-year-old Russian citizen Vladimir Popov by mauling him to death off the coast of the Hurghada vacation town in the Red Sea.
Online videos of the attack show Mr. Popov writhing around in the water while being repeatedly mauled by a shark. Then he is pulled under.
Then, according to a witness, the animal played with Mr. Popov’s body for two hours.
The shark was eventually caught, and footage shows it being brought into shore on a boat, before being beaten to death.
Mr Popov’s devastated dad Yury, who saw the attack, told local media his son yelled ‘papa, save me’ as he was attacked.
Yury added: ‘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…’
He said the beach was safe and described the killing as an ‘absolutely ridiculous coincidence’.
Yury added: ‘There are ships and yachts around. It’s never happened there. They usually attack on wild beaches. It is just some kind of evil fate.’
The Russian Consulate in Hurghada confirmed Popov was Russian but said he was a permanent resident of Egypt. It’s believed he’s been living in Egypt for a number of months.
Other beachgoers were seen frantically running out of the water when the attack happened.
An eyewitness said: ‘Children swim [in the area where theshark attacked] very often – there were children’s slides.
‘All this happened not far from a descent into the sea, next to the ladder, used by everyone who went into the water. At one point, the shark appeared, and immediately bit this man.
‘Rescuers saw this and began to start the boat. He tried to swim away from the shark, but he couldn’t.
‘It immediately saw through him, his legs surfaced quickly. And it dragged the body for two hours. It constantly dragged him under the water.’
Another source said there was a woman in the water not far from the man who was screaming.
They said: ‘The rescuers dragged her onto the boat, after which they rescued two more girls.
‘They were all taken away by doctors or the police, because they were in [a state of] shock, hysterical.’
The 46 mile (74km) stretch of coastline was closed off and is not expected to reopen until Sunday.
The ministry said the shark is being looked at in a laboratory to try and establish why it attacked, and if it was responsible for other maulings.
Although it’s not common for sharks to attack in the coastal regions of the Red Sea, an Austrian and a Romanian tourist were killed within days of each other last year.
Tourists, including many from Europe, flock to Egypt’s Red Sea resorts each year, with divers being drawn to the coral reefs and colourful sea life.
But numbers have been hit by years of political instability, the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Tiger sharks are one of the larger shark species that can grow to over five metres. The live in mostly tropical and temperate waters and are among the most cited by the International Shark Attack File for unprovoked attacks on humans.
Last month an American tourist lost her foot in a shark attack while snorkelling in the Turks and Caicos Islands.