Accessibility links

Breaking News

Knife Attacker Kills 2 Tourists in Egyptian Resort


FILE - Tourists relax in a pool in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, Egypt, August 15, 2016.
FILE - Tourists relax in a pool in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, Egypt, August 15, 2016.

Two tourists were killed and four other foreigners wounded by an attacker armed with a knife at an Egyptian Red Sea holiday resort, Egypt's Interior Ministry and security sources said on Friday.

The attacker swam from a nearby public beach to access the Sunny Days El Palacio resort in Hurghada, the ministry and sources said. He was arrested. The motive for the attack is under investigation Egypt is fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and militants have previously attacked tourism targets.

The slain tourists were Germans, not Ukrainians as originally identified, Major Gen. Mohamed El-Hamzawi, security manager of Red Sea region, told Reuters.

He said two Czech nationals were also among the four people wounded.

El Palacio is a large seafront property with a private beach in Hurghada, one of Egypt's most popular holiday resorts, some 400 km (250 miles) south of the capital Cairo.

In January 2016, two assailants armed with a gun, a knife and a suicide belt landed on the beach of a hotel in Hurghada, wounding two foreign tourists, security sources said.

Friday's attack came on a day that five policemen were killed by gunmen on a motorbike who ambushed their car just south of Cairo.

  • 16x9 Image

    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

XS
SM
MD
LG