One of three tourists stabbed by suspected militants at a Red Sea hotel has told how he thought he would “bleed to death”.
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The BBC’s Sally Nabil in Cairo says Hurghada remains on high alert with all roads in and out closed off. Police forces are still searching for possible further attackers, she says.
It was the second hotel attack in as many days. The insurgency has been focused in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula but has frequently spilled over into the mainland since the ouster in 2013 of the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Security forces shot and killed one or more of the attackers as soon as they stormed the beachside Bella Vista resort, officials said, though there is no immediate info on the situation of the tourists, or on another.
But the Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed that one Swede was injured and Expressen newspaper quoted the victim’s father as saying he was “fine” in hospital.
“Everything went really fast”, he said. “I believed I’d bleed to death”.
“I took a look at them and there are two guys – both of them have a knife in the right hand and something that looks like a pistol in the left hand, something black”.
“I told him to lie still”.
A young Swedish woman who was also in the restaurant at the time, Zainab Feili, described the chaos.
“He got four blows to the neck – it was pure luck that it did not hit an artery”, Jan-Eric said.
Austria is considering changing its travel advice regarding the country, in the wake of a series of attacks targeting tourists, with the biggest disaster including the apparent shooting down of a Russian passenger jet by ISIS-affiliated militants, with the loss of 224 lives.
Egypt’s Ministry of Interior has stated that an investigation was underway following the events.
“Some have made a decision to do so. We sat there and ate and then they showed up”, he said.
Hurghada is “a small destination for Apollo Sweden”, Mr Browall said.
The attack on the tourists came on a day when Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christians were celebrating Christmas in the predominantly Muslim country. “Everybody just ran. We hear shoot. Everybody cries. It was very bad”, she said.
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But witnesses claimed the killed attacker was wearing an explosives belt, with retired military officer Mohammed Beram telling the Associated Press it could be seen when the man was stripped by security forces.
