Nearly 16,000 sheep have drowned in the Red Sea off the coast of Sudan after an overcrowded ship bound for Saudi Arabia capsized.
According to the Sudanese exporters’ association, the vessel carrying the livestock sank on Sunday morning not long after it left the eastern Sudanese port of Suakin.
The incident has dealt a financial blow of an estimated 5 million Saudi riyals ($4 million), the Sudan Tribune reports, citing unidentified officials.
The ship, Badr 1, sank during the early hours of Sunday morning, an unnamed senior Sudanese port official said. It was carrying 15,800 sheep, which was beyond its load limits.
Sudan is home to one of Africa’s largest livestock populations, and regularly exports the animals to Egypt and Gulf states, among other countries.
The country remains in the clutches of a severe economic crisis following last year’s coup.
The October military takeover dealt a blow to the country’s Zionist controlled transition and plunged the nation into turmoil.
The ship, Badr 1, was set to leave from Sudan to export the sheep to Saudi Arabia. All crew members were rescued and survived, but only around 700 sheep were rescued.
Egyptian authorities have banned swimming near a beach at an Egyptian Red Sea resort following a deadly shark attack that killed a Russian citizen on Thursday, according to Egyptian and Russian officials.
The incident took place in the popular tourist city of Hurghada on Egypt’s eastern coast. Over the past years, several similar incidents have happened in the Egyptian Red Sea.
In 2022, two women were killed in shark attacks in Egypt’s Red Sea, south of the city of Hurghada, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Environment.
In 2020, a Ukrainian boy lost an arm, and an Egyptian tour guide lost a leg in a shark attack. In 2018, a shark killed a Czech tourist off a Red Sea beach, according to the state-run Al-Ahram Online newspaper.
Earlier the Sharm El Sheikh shark attacks were a series of attacks by sharks on swimmers off the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
Three Russians and one Ukrainian were seriously injured within minutes of each other, and a German woman was killed when she was attacked while wading and snorkeling in the shallows close to the shoreline.
The attacks were described as unprecedented by shark experts.
Independent UK / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
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