A young Russian man has died in a shark attack off the coast of the Egyptian Red Sea city of Hurghada, official sources said Thursday.

The Egyptian Ministry of Environment announced "an attack by a tiger shark on a beachgoer, which led to his death," in a statement on its official Facebook page.

While the ministry did not specify details about the victim, Moscow media confirmed that he was Russian in his third decade.

The agency quoted "TASS" Consul General of Russia in Hurghada Viktor Vorobayev, as saying, "Around 12 p.m. in the local arrest (00:1999 p.m. GMT), an attack by a shark took place off the coast of Dream Beach (central Hurghada), which led to the death of a Russian citizen, F. Yes. Popov, born in <>."

The diplomat noted that the victim "was not a tourist, but a permanent resident of Egypt."

In turn, the Russian Consulate General in Hurghada urged Russian tourists - in a statement published on its official Telegram channel - to be careful when in the water, and to strictly abide by any ban on swimming imposed by local authorities.

A video they said was taken from the coast of Hurghada at the time of the incident, widely circulated by social media users in Egypt.

Suspension of water activities

The video shows a person struggling at sea, before the fins of the shark that attacked him floated on the surface of the water near him.

In the background, a woman is heard shouting, "Oh my God, what is this?!" , accompanied by distress calls from afar. Moments later, the shark and the man disappeared underwater.

The Ministry of Environment confirmed that its specialized teams "caught the fish causing the accident to examine it," "in light of the abnormal behaviors of the shark causing the accident, and the previous fact that incidents of attacks on humans of this type of sharks occurred previously."

It said it would seek to identify the "possible causes" of the attack, stressing that all water activities in the area would be suspended for two days from Friday, as part of "applicable international protocols".

Sharks live in the Red Sea, but they rarely attack tourists unless they exceed the limits.

A similar shark attack in July 2022 led to the deaths of two Austrian and Romanian tourists.

In 2018, the remains of a Czech tourist were found on a beach in the Red Sea city of Marsa Alam, after an official confirmed that he had decided to swim in an area where sharks are found.

In 2015, a fifty-year-old German tourist was killed after being attacked by a shark while swimming during a cruise in the southeastern tourist city of Qusayr.