German woman killed in shark attack off Canary Islands

MADRID (Reuters) - A German woman died after she was attacked by a shark while swimming beside her catamaran in high seas between Spain's Canary Islands and West Africa, a police spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The woman, aged 30, was travelling on a catamaran that had sailed southbound from Gran Canaria island on Sept. 14. She was attacked by a shark that bit off one of her legs, the police said.

Coastguards flew from Gran Canaria to the area, 514 kilometres (320 miles) south of the island, and evacuated her, but she died from the wound in the helicopter.

Even though a few shark species are large and aggressive enough to hunt animals the size of humans, actual shark attacks and fatalities are rare around the world. The Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File (ISAF) identified 14 shark-related fatalities around the world in 2023.

ISAF has recorded only six confirmed shark-related incidents in Spain's history.

(Reporting by Natalia Siniawski, editing by Inti Landauro, Editing by Alex Richardson)

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