Egypt shark attack: Father describes how he watched tiger shark maul son to death

A distraught Russian father has told of his horror at watching his son be mauled to death by a ‘meat grinder’ tiger shark at an Egyptian resort as he screamed out: ‘Papa, save me!’

Yury Popov was forced to watch helplessly from the shore as the predator circled his son Vladimir, 23, before dragging him under water in the resort of Hurghada.

Holidaymakers scrambled from the water as horrified onlookers called out to Vladimir to swim away from the shark before he was mauled to death.

The tiger shark was then caught and dragged to land by boat before it was killed. 

‘We went to the beach to relax,’ Mr Popov, originally from Russia, told the 112 media outlet. ‘My son was attacked by a shark, it all happened in seconds.’

The heartbroken father said there were no family members near his son to help in the water, though initial reports said the 23-year-old’s girlfriend had managed to flee the attack.

‘What kind of help can you give? This meat grinder happened in 20 seconds, he was just dragged under the water,’ Mr Popov said.

The father said: ‘This is an absolutely ridiculous coincidence, because it is a safe beach. There are ships and yachts around. It’s never happened there. They usually attack on wild beaches. It’s just some kind of evil fate.’ 

Vladimir had been living with his father in Egypt for several months before the horrific attack. Mr Popov said he would cremate his son and return his ashes to their native Russia.

Video shows the tiger shark being caught and dragged ashore by a boat following the attack, and it appeared to be alive before being clubbed to death. 

The Egyptian authorities confirmed the shark has been handed over for research to find out the causes of its behaviour and identify whether the animal is related to one that ’caused several previous accidents’.

Video taken by horrified onlookers shows Vladimir desperately shouting ‘Papa, Papa’ as the predator circled him in the water before launching the attack. 

The 23-year-old can be seen desperately trying to swim towards the shore to no avail. His body is seen spinning in the water, and his legs are raised above the surface.

‘Swim away, swim away! Quick! A shark!’ people can be heard shouting in the video. 

Soon the splashing in the water stops, and the man’s head returns to the surface. He appears to be moving around in the water again but slowly.

He can be heard screaming ‘Papa’, pleading for help, as the water turns red.

The shark’s body is seen clearly at the surface at the moment, and its fin and tail are visible as it circles the victim. 

The shark turns around again to attack and charges at the victim before clamping its jaws around him and pulling him under water.

The man’s head appears above the water one last time, and the shark’s body is seen writhing in the ocean as it appears to maul the body and drag it further into the depths of the water. 

One witness said: ‘The shark’s eating his remains now. There she is, eating his remains.’ Another said: ‘Right in front of my eyes, the shark ate the guy, the girl [the girlfriend] managed to escape. He took the blow from the shark. 

‘It’s a terrible thing, the remains of this man are lying there.’

A new video showed a distraught woman on the beach being comforted by two other woman moments after Vladimir was mauled to death. 

It is believed the Russian woman had been pulled out of the water after being close to the man who was killed. It is not known if she was a relative of Popov.

So far Popov’s father Yury is the only member of the family to speak.

After witnessing the attack, it evidently took a lengthy time to find the body and bring it onshore.

‘Later, the remains were found, and the body was put in a bag and taken to the morgue,’ he said.

‘Children swam [in the area where the shark attacked] very often – there were children’s slides,’ another witness said. 

‘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.

‘And the shark dragged the body for two hours. It constantly dragged him under the water.’

Witnesses said the victim’s girlfriend had been in the water at the time of the attack. Russian reports say she is safe and has returned to Russia. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of a citizen from a shark attack. 

Vladimir had moved to the resort with his father at a time when many young males are moving abroad to avoid facing conscription – and likely death – as the brutal war in Ukraine continues.

The family had bought a property at the British Resort in Hurghada, say reports.

Other accounts said he had been staying at the four-star Elysees Dream Beach Hotel in Hurghada.

IT specialist Vladimir ‘loved his father very much and was just beginning to live’, said a friend.

He was said to be working remotely when he died, as are many young Russian men who are defying Putin.

Born in sub-Arctic city Archangel, or Arkhangelsk, he had moved to Moscow before decamping to Egypt amid the war with Ukraine.

His girlfriend, Anastasia, who is in her early twenties, has so far not spoken of the tragedy.

One female friend said: ‘Vova [Vladimir] was a good guy.

‘He was only a month away from his birthday.

‘Friends say that he moved there [to Egypt] with his father.

‘As far as I know, he really liked living in Moscow, his whole life was there.

‘Vova was a wonderful person and loved his father very much.’

Oleg, who knew the deceased man, said: ‘He was into music. He recorded songs.’

There was speculation that a woman seen on the beach being conformed by two other women was his mother.

But 360TV reported that she was at home in Balashikha, Moscow region.

A source said: ‘His mother cried all day. She screamed that she had lost her son.’

The commotion was so great that a neighbour said ‘we were even afraid that someone was being killed there’. Locals wanted to call the police.

The 23-year-old is not the first victim to be killed by a shark at the resort.

In July last year, 68-year-old Austrian Elisabeth Sauer was attacked in front of horrified onlookers at a resort in Sahl Hasheesh – 15 minutes after English speaking guests warned Egyptian lifeguards about sharks and their warnings had been laughed off.

The resort is a 30-minute drive from Hurghada, where Vladimir was killed. 

A second woman – identified only as a Romanian national in her 40s – is thought to have been killed in a similar attack just 650ft away from where Ms Sauer died, with her badly disfigured remains found on a nearby reef the same day.

Ms Sauer lost an arm and a leg in an attack that was caught on film, as onlookers tried to distract the shark and get her to safety.

She reached the shore with the help of a flipper, but died a short time later.

Reports at the time – from news agency AFP and Austrian news outlets – pointed to the attack being committed by a Mako shark, while local Egyptian newspapers named the animal as an Oceanic whitetip shark.