Two tourists killed and four injured in Red Sea resort attack
Five policemen die in drive-by shooting in shadow of the pyramids
Two Ukrainian women tourists were stabbed to death while four other foreigners were wounded in an attack yesterday at a hotel in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Hurghada, an Egyptian security official said.
The assault came just hours after a drive-by shooting near some of Egypt’s pyramids outside Cairo killed five policemen.
The motive behind the stabbing was unclear and the interior ministry said the attacker at the Red Sea resort was arrested immediately.
A security official said the attacker, a man in his 20s who had sneaked into the hotel by swimming from a nearby beach, wielded a knife and intentionally sought to attack foreigners.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the killing of the policemen but that attack bore the hallmarks of a smaller Islamic militant group known as Hasm, which has been behind similar drive-by shootings.
Yesterday’s attacks could impact an already struggling tourism industry – a pillar of Egypt’s economy that employs millions of people. The industry has suffered from political instability and a fragile security situation since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.
The year before the upheaval, nearly 15 million tourists visited Egypt. Last year, the figure was at 5.3 million, according to official reports. In 2015, an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt downed a Russian plane over Sinai, killing all 224 passengers aboard.
The attacker in Hurghada, one of Egypt’s most popular beach resorts and diving centres, stabbed the tourists in the face, neck and feet, according to the security official.
Two Ukrainian tourists died of their wounds while three tourists from Serbia and one from Poland were wounded, the official said. Governor Ahmed Abdullah of the Red Sea governorate also confirmed the two deaths but gave no further details. However, in Belgrade, Serbia’s foreign ministry said no Serbian citizens were among the wounded in the Hurgada attack.
An emergency doctor at the al-salam hospital in Hurghada declined to answer questions, only confirming that the wounded tourists were brought there. The official described the attacker as a young man in his twenties, dressed in a black T-shirt and blue jeans, and said he shouted in Arabic during the attack, apparently meant for Egyptians: “Stay away, I don’t want Egyptians.”
Earlier yesterday, gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a security vehicle patrolling a Giza village, next to some of Egypt’s oldest pyramids outside the capital, Cairo, killing five police, the interior ministry and officials said.
The deadly shooting – on the Muslim weekend in Egypt, when traffic is slower – heightened fears of what has become near-weekly attacks by suspected Islamic militants after a blitz attack left 23 troops dead in northern Sinai a week ago.
Egypt has been under a months-long state of emergency following a series of deadly church bombings in the spring.