Hurghada is in a state of high alert, with all roads into the resort town closed while security forces search for other possible suspects.
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About 1,500 British tourists are now estimated to be in Hurghada, which is one of the most popular Red Sea resorts with British tourists after Sharm el Sheikh. The wounded attacker was arrested, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The hotel posted on its Facebook page pictures of the two other victims, spelled in hospital records as Renata Weisslen and Wilhem Weislan, both smiling. Officials said that the attackers were aiming to kidnap tourists.
One hotel worker, however, tells BuzzFeed News that the official statement downplays the severity of the attack.
The attack came hours after Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State claimed responsibility for an armed attack on a tourist hotel in Cairo.
Mr Olovsson dismissed his attackers as “just insane guys”, adding: “It can happen any time, anywhere”.
The ministry said two men armed with knives had entered the outdoor restaurant at the front of the seaside, four-star Bella Vista Hotel and attacked the tourists. The IS statement, published online, claimed the attack was in response to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s call “to target the Jews everywhere”.
“Everything went really fast”, he said. “I thought I would bleed to death”, he said. They pointed the gun at him and stabbed his son in the neck.
“I’m lying in hospital with four stab wounds but the situation is stable”.
He described having to watch his son lie in a pool of his own blood until he could safely run outside to get an ambulance.
He said another woman eating in the restaurant was also wounded.
“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”.
A member of the hotel’s management staff who witnessed the incident said the attackers sneaked into the Bella Vista from a hotel next door, accessing the facility from the beach.
Tourism is important to the Egyptian market as a way to obtain hard currency, but has been ravaged by years of political chaos considering that the revolution that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak.
The Olovssons’ trip was organized by one of Sweden’s largest tour operators, Apollo.
“Some have chose to do so”.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Survivors said the attack was staged by a plane and a helicopter.
Saturday morning saw an increased security presence outside the hotel. “Everybody cries. It was bad”, she said. He was half naked…
Egypt’s tourist economy is struggling to recover from unrest triggered by the Arab Spring and military coup in 2013, and travel agencies were already reporting people cancelling trips to Hurghada today. The ministry, which is in charge of the police, said they deployed police to the scene to investigate the shooting and search for suspects.
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Meanwhile, the Egyptian branch of the jihadist Islamic State group on Thursday said it had bombed a pipeline that carries gas to Jordan and to a major industrial zone in north Sinai. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
