One of the tourists attacked by militants at a Red Sea hotel in Egypt has told reporters about the moment he thought he was going to die.
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Two armed assailants have stabbed two Austrians and one Swedish national in a suspected terror attack on an Egyptian hotel Friday evening.
Meanwhile, two policemen were killed on the way to work in an attack in the Giza district of Cairo.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry confirmed the attackers had been armed with knives and an air pistol and said they did not know the motive for the attack. Officials said that the attackers were aiming to kidnap tourists.
The extremist group also claimed responsibility for a plane crash in the Sinai Peninsula that killed 224 people in October, saying a security breach at Sharm el Sheik airport enabled it to plant a bomb on the Russian passenger jet.
On Thursday a bus of Israeli tourists was attacked near Giza’s pyramids but nobody was injured.
In an official statement, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior stated that unidentified assailants managed to infiltrate and access Bella Vista Hotel near the downtown area of Hurghada, threatening hotel guests with weapons.
The violence has spilled over to the Egyptian mainland since elected President Mohammed Morsi was toppled by the army in 2013, with attacks coming increasingly closer to the capital.
Egypt has been battling an insurgency by Islamic militants led by the Islamic State’s affiliate.
Security sources had earlier said two tourists had been injured, one from Germany and one from Denmark. The hotel’s facade and the bus parked in front of the building, which had been scheduled to ferry tourists from the northern Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm and the central city of Jaffa, were damaged in the incident.
The minister described the attack as “non professional” indicating that the reasons behind the attack were not yet clear.
The resorts which Egypt promoted as jewels of its tourism industry have attracted millions of holidaymakers, including Russians, Britons and Italians, and are famed for their pristine beaches and scuba diving.
The authorities in Hurghada acted very quickly and very effectively to deal with the local agitators whose goal was to further harm the tourism sector which is so important to Egypt’s economy.
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Nine Egyptians were sentenced in November to life in prison for their involvement in the failed attack, while two others were jailed for seven years.
