Seychelles shark attack leaves Briton dead

A British man has died in a shark attack while on honeymoon in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

Ian Redmond, 30, from Lancashire, survived the attack off Anse Lazio beach on Praslin, but died afterwards, a local police spokesman said.

He lost an arm and suffered severe hip injuries whilst snorkelling on Tuesday in what was the second fatal shark attack in the same area this month.

Authorities have stopped diving in the area as they try to catch the shark.

The couple were in the second week of their honeymoon and had been due to fly home on Sunday, police spokesman Jean Toussaint said.

He said two men on a catamaran had assisted Mr Redmond just after 1700 local time and he was taken to hospital, but had no chance of surviving.

“We discovered that the British citizen was badly injured on the hips and the arms. He was assisted medically but unfortunately he could not make it,” he said.

‘Freak accident’
“We haven’t got the autopsy report yet but he definitely lost a lot of blood.”

A 36-year-old French tourist was killed by a shark off the same beach just over two weeks ago.

The Seychelles Tourism Board’s director Alain St Ange told the BBC the latest attack was caused by a “foreign shark” and was a “freak accident”.

He said: “We need to find the beast and get it out of our waters, we have requested help from South Africa and two experts are arriving in the country in the next day.”

British High Commissioner Matthew Forbes was with the bride and her family were due to arrive in the east African country, he said.

“We have now closed the beach and all the surrounding beaches, and stopped diving in the area,” he added.

Local restaurant owner Jeanne Vargiolu said she went to the beach on Tuesday after hearing sirens.

“I saw his wife talking to about five people, I think one was English, that she still had hope he was still alive,” she said. “They were trying to help him but they could not get him alive.”

Ms Vargiolu said her family had lived on the beach for 36 years and the two shark attacks this month were the first she had seen.

“It must be the same shark that attacked 16 days ago,” she said.

An employee at the La Reserve hotel told the Press Association the man and his wife had been guests there.

The Foreign Office has confirmed the death and said it was providing consular assistance to next of kin.

Prior to this month’s deaths, the last recorded fatal shark attack in the Seychelles was in 1963.

There were 16 more attacks than in 2009 but one fewer than in 2000, it said.

Of the 400 or so species of shark, only a handful are associated with attacks on humans.

They include the white shark, tiger shark and bull shark, and less commonly the great hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, and certain reef sharks.

Source: BBC

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