Lifeguards at a Red Sea resort where two women were killed by sharks laughed when English-speaking tourists told them the killer fish were circling beneath the waves.
One of the women, a Romanian national, went missing from her hotel two days before the attack, according to sources at the upmarket hotel.
If true, this means the authorities were slow to grasp the true peril faced by tourists in the popular Egyptian resort.
It may even be that the Romanian woman was eaten alive before an attack on an Austrian woman who had been believed to be the first victim.
There are also claims that English-speaking tourists had warned the lifeguards of the presence of sharks 15 minutes before Austrian woman Elisabeth Sauer, 68, was fatally attacked.
But, it is claimed, they “laughed” and said: “There are no sharks in Sahl Hasheesh and never have been.”
The body of the Romanian woman in her 40s - “disfigured” by a shark attack - was found on coral at least two days after she was reported missing.
Russian tourists say that the recovery team prevented them filming the macabre scene as her ravaged human remains were packed into body bags.
One eyewitness claimed “half of her body was missing.”
Another tourist heard speaking in a beachside bar recounting what he has just seen.
“It was obviously a corpse,” he said. "[Killed by] a shark…
"They put [the human remains] in bags. Five minutes ago. There are six policemen there.
“An electric car drove up, they put it there, right in the bags.
“The car stalled, they pushed it out. Damn... this is the second [shark victim] already.
“Photos and videos were not allowed. Police ran up saying: ‘Erase. Erase. Erase’."
Some 650ft away, pensioner Sauer had been seen on video desperately swimming back to a pier despite losing an arm and leg in her vicious mauling.
She died from nervous shock as paramedics tried to revive her.
Now a Russian resident of Hurghada — named Zhanna — has revealed how the Romanian woman had been missing from adult-only Premiere Le Reve hotel.
“She was found on coral…her body disfigured, a citizen of Romania,” she revealed.
She had been “missing from her room for two days”.
She alleged: “After the first victim, no one closed any beaches.
“I swam freely…
“They, as always, wanted to hide it, but when it became known there were two victims, they finally stirred.”
She told Russian news outlet gazette.ru : “A working group of specialists was formed to find out the reasons for the behaviour of the sharks.
“The Russian consulate warned Russian tourists.
“There is no particular panic, the residents both swam and paddled.
“Let's see how the governor of the Red Sea reacts.
“They don’t want to lose tourists, but they don’t do anything to prevent this either.”
An online chat site for Russian tourists provides compelling evidence that lifeguards ignored the acute danger of sharks, and failed to order tourists out of the water.
"English-speaking people standing at the pier saw a shark 15 minutes before the attack, and warned the lifeguards,” said the post.
“But they laughed at them, saying there are no sharks in Sahl Hasheesh and never have been.
“Another two tourists jumped onto the reef top, escaping a shark, and pleaded for help.
“But the lifeguards shouted to swim from the place to the pontoon stairway by themselves.
“To put it bluntly, everything is Egyptian style.
“There is no science, no proper system.
“They just made a lad from Luxor the lifeguard and gave him a whistle.”
There are confused timings in reports over the discovery of the Romanian woman’s body.
The first accounts of the body being found appear to be on 2 July.
If she had been missing for two days, this suggests she was last at her hotel on 30 June.
Sauer was attacked on 1 July in the late afternoon.
