Ukraine report: Russian shark attack victims treated with rags

Egyptian lifeguards used rags torn from their shirts to treat shark attack victims, and hotel officials initially lied about the safety of the area where the attacks occurred, a major Ukrainian newspaper reported Thursday.

One Ukrainian and two Russian tourists were injured and one German woman was killed by shark attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh last week, prompting the government to close beaches for several days, DPA reported.

"The lifeguards on the beach had no first aid supplies. They used their shirts to bind (an injured tourist's) wounds," a witness to the attacks told the Segodnya newspaper.

Anatoly Bondarenko, interviewed with his wife in Kiev's Boryspil airport shortly after returning home from an Egyptian holiday, alleged local officials initially lied to tourists about the presence of an aggressive shark in the vicinity.

"The hotel managers first told us people (who suffered shark bites) had cut themselves on coral," he said. "The next day the German woman died in the water."

Some beaches along Egypt's popular southern Sinai Peninsula were partially reopened on Tuesday after the shark attacks had forced them to close, Egyptian officials said.

A number of beaches around the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh were reopened, but only to licensed divers, said Mohamed Shawsha, governor of south Sinai.

Anti-shark nets were in place at some beaches, but a total ban on tourist swimming was still in effect, according to Segodnya.

Sharm-El-Sheikh is a major Ukrainian tourist destination because of its relative low cost and the ease with which a Ukrainian national may obtain an Egyptian visa.