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Swede stabbed in Egypt hotel attack ‘stable’

Sammie Olovsson, 27, from Boxholm, in southern Sweden was one of three people stabbed by two suspected Islamic State (ISIS) militants at a luxury hotel in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

Swede stabbed in Egypt hotel attack 'stable'
Photo: Bella Vista Hotel

However, according to Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, Olovsson reassured friends on Facebook that he was not seriously injured. “I'm lying in hospital with four stab wounds but the situation is stable.”

When the attack took place on Friday, Sammie and his father Jan-Eric Olovsson, 64, from Boxholm, were in the restaurant at the Bella Vista hotel in Hurghada.

“We sat and ate food together. It was just Sammie and me,” Jan-Eric Olovsson told Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet.

Suddenly two armed men rushed into the restaurant.

The men were armed with both knives and guns in the attack and Sammie was repeatedly attacked with a knife.

“He got four blows to the neck – it was pure luck that it did not hit an artery,” Jan-Eric said.

Jan-Eric and Sammie had to take cover, and threw themselves to the floor.

“I had a gun pointed at me several times,” said Jan-Eric.

However, security forces were quick to intervene, and killed one of the attackers, seriously wounding the other.

The other two hurt in the attack were Austrian citizens

Hurghada is in a state of high alert, with all roads into the resort town closed while security forces search for other possible suspects.

According to witnesses, the attackers were carrying an ISIS flag, and were attempting to kidnap tourists at knifepoint.

The attacker who was killed was apparently wearing a suicide vest.  

Both attackers are thought to have arrived via sea. According to Egyptian authorities, the dead terrorist has been identified as a 21-year-old student from the Giza neighbourhood of Cairo.

Egypt remains in a struggle against Islamic terrorists based in the Sinai Peninsula. The country's tourism industry is in a parlous state after a series of recent attacks, including the downing of a Russian commercial jet, with many tourists cancelling travel to the region.