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dispatched to track it – or them – down. Desperate to allay fears, make their waters safe and preserve a highly lucrative tourist industry, the authorities knew they must act fast. But it was all about to go horribly wrong.

      In a statement, the Egyptian environment minister announced that the shark had been captured and was being held at Ras Mohammed. Two other sharks – a Mako (the smaller, shyer species rarely seen in the Red Sea) and an Oceanic Whitetip – were slaughtered and dissected for examination of their stomachs. The examination of the Mako confirmed it was indeed responsible for the attack on Viktor Koliy: an anomaly in its teeth, probably after an injury from a hook, matched their wounds. Film of the catch showed the Oceanic Whitetip being hauled by its eye sockets onto a small fishing boat, its dead body cut and bloodied, belly slashed. Both creatures had been caught after reaching for bait thrown into the sea by their hunters. A government statement issued in a bid to bring about calm said the Oceanic Whitetip shark was similar to the one photographed by a diver minutes before the first attack. Others insisted it was not the shark and they would be proved right because the Oceanic Whitetip that had been captured and killed did not have the damage to its fin as described by witnesses to the attacks. Also, the wounds inflicted on victims did not match its teeth. What everyone did agree on was that such species of shark normally stay in deep waters, a habit now broken with devastating results. Biologist Dr. Elke Bojanowski said: ‘I was very surprised that the first shark they caught was a Mako shark. I have been working in the Red Sea for seven years and I have never seen a Mako shark underwater in an area like that, close to the reef. Usually they are open-water sharks and do not come so close to the reef.’ In all, some 40 diving instructors volunteered to trawl the waters, but no further sharks were found nearby.

      Meanwhile, there was growing criticism of the way the authorities were handling the terror that stalked the waters: warning signs should have been erected after the first attacks, people ought to have been alerted to the danger lurking in the waters and more should have been done to publicise such a monumental occurrence. Furthermore, simply tracking and killing any shark to be found was not enough: it was a random approach and no one was convinced the real killer had been stopped. ‘I have always said that there was no way this could be the work of a single animal,’ said Amr Aboulfatah, former chairman of the South Sinai Association for Diving and Marine Activities, and the owner of a large local dive centre. ‘You’ve got more chance of winning the jackpot in Las Vegas than you do of identifying and then capturing a single shark and thus solving the problem.’ The CDWS agreed with him, saying that it did not ‘in any way condone the random killing of sharks.’ Some conservation groups said that the authorities had originally promised to relocate the rogue shark – or sharks – to the Gulf of Suez, but had instead sent a 12-man team to capture and kill two which are listed as vulnerable on the International Union of the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

      Even more controversially, Amr Ali, director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA), said he had received photographs of ten sharks killed by the authorities. The group accused Egyptian officials of attempting to ‘wipe out local shark populations’. Dr. George Burgess declared a shark hunt to be a waste of time as his team had ruled out the existence of a so-called rogue shark that was acting like a ‘deranged human being taking lives.’ Meanwhile, Dr. Bojanowski said that the random killing of sharks did not help anyone: ‘You put out baited hooks and then a random shark that might have just entered the area and maybe was not even there the day before is just grabbing that baited hook. You could also be attracting sharks to the area. It is not helping the problem. They are very, very self-confident; very, very curious. A shark will actually approach you and check you out – you could probably best describe them as bold.’

      But as far as the authorities were concerned the attacking shark had been caught. The waters were therefore re-opened and declared safe but just in case, they drew up instructions for local hotels and diving centres. ‘In line with these instructions, hotels and diving centres will have to appoint special staff, who will permanently supervise swimming areas and, if needed, report sharks approaching beaches,’ announced the Ecology Ministry. The instructions also meant people had to be evacuated from insecure areas if a shark sighting was reported and a shark hunt subsequently launched.

      Yet it was no wonder that no one felt reassured – the serial killer of the deep was causing terror equal to that of any disaster movie. And so many knew the killer was still out there. Then came a horrific climax to the attacks.

      On 5 December a 70-year-old German woman, Renate Sieffert from Markdof, died in the shark’s jaws. She was already dead when pulled from the water. Her partner, Rudi, could only look on from the beach, his screams and tears mixed with stunned horror. Renate’s death came just 24 hours after the Red Sea was pronounced free of any threat of sharks. Dr. Bojanowski commented: ‘We opened the beaches and everything was normal – there was no shark activity at all that day.’ Renate Sieffert had been a regular guest at the resort’s luxury Hyatt Regency hotel. Diving instructor Ehat Abd Elrahman was with divers completing their open-water qualification when he spotted an Oceanic Whitetip close to the shore and raised the alarm: ‘It was very big – I had never seen one so big. The shark did not pay any attention to us. He did not have any problem with divers but for sure there was something going on, on the surface. I raised my hand to signal that there were sharks in the water, but by then things were already happening.’

      Tourists described in graphic detail how the waters went red as the victim snorkelled just 20m (66ft) from the shore. Sieffert’s arm was severed and she died within minutes. Ellen Barnes, 31, a British tourist who was in the water at the time, recalled the scene vividly: ‘I looked behind me and there was this woman thrashing about and screaming for help. The water was full of blood – it was horrific. The shark kept coming up and taking bites out of her and then coming back for more; for another bite. The water was churning like I was in a washing machine; 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.’

      Ms Barnes, from Horsham, Sussex, described the lifeguards at the beach as ‘useless and petrified’. Her partner, Gary Light, 32, shouted to them to get the swimmers out of the water but noted they just stood there: ‘I could see the shark taking bites, and going back and attacking this woman. I was trying to get Ellen and everyone out of the sea. It was ghastly, horrible, like something out of a horror film.’

      Ms Barnes went on to criticise the authorities for assuring tourists that the sea was safe: ‘We were kept very much in the dark about it and we were all promised that the sea was safe. We were told that the sharks would not come over the coral as it would scratch their bellies, so that’s why I was out there snorkelling. It is a big shock. The worst thing is that the lifeguards promised there were no more sharks in the sea. I think it is such a shame that the Egyptian Government felt confident enough to send out faxes to all the hotels to say it was safe when obviously it was not.’

      Jochen Van Lysebettens, manager of the Red Sea Diving College at the resort, told Sky News: ‘The woman was just swimming to stay in shape. Suddenly there was a scream of “Help!” and a lot of violence in the water. The lifeguard got her on the reef and he noticed she was severely wounded.’

      Another swimmer, Inna Koval, described the attack: ‘I was snorkelling a couple of minutes away before the incident. It happened just 100m [328ft] away from me. It came so close. I heard a man who started to scream very loudly. All I could understand was that something was wrong and the word “shark”. I saw the tussle in the water and a tail of a shark for a second above the water. Many people were still swimming. It happened so suddenly that they struggled to get away very quickly. It was so close to the beach where tourists were allowed to swim. No one expected this because the waters are not deep enough and there is coral everywhere. A speed boat which was cruising around came by immediately and circled the victim and the shark, but it couldn’t do anything else. The attack went on for about seven seconds but it was long enough to get its victim.’

      Yet another casualty and this time a fatal one for Dr. Dahi. ‘She was already dead when she came to the hospital,’ he recalled. ‘She had an amputated right arm and highly amputated right leg. There was a large wound to the back also – I

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