Hijjah, 1431/Dec. 02, 2010, SPA -- Beaches remained closed Thursday in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, officials said, after shark attacks this week injured four foreign tourists, according to the German Press Agency (dpa). An oceanic whitetip shark is believed to have injured three Russians and one Ukrainian swimming in the Red Sea in separate incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday. Two of the victims lost limbs. "All beaches along the coast of southern Sinai will stay shut until the search for the shark is completed," Governor Mohamed Shawsha of the South Sinai's district told dpa. The beaches have been closed since Wednesday. The Ministry of Tourism has also ordered the suspension of all diving activities, a major draw for foreign visitors. Search teams assembled by the government were scouring the area's waters amid fears that more than one shark may have ventured too close to shore, Shawsha said. Whitetip sharks are regularly spotted in deep waters in the Red Sea's reefs. However, it is fairly rare for the creatures, listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a threatened species, to be found in shallow waters. Shark attacks on humans are rare on Sinai's Red Sea beaches.
