Shark kills woman swimming off popular beach in South Africa

A woman died after being mauled by a shark while swimming off a popular beach on South Africa’s southeastern coast on Tuesday, witnesses and authorities said.

Fatal shark attacks are uncommon worldwide but South Africa has a history of deadly encounters along its long coastline.

Tuesday’s attack was at Orient Beach in KuGompo City, previously known as East London. 

Police said they were called to the scene at around 7:00 am local time, where they found the body of a 65-year-old woman with “open wounds.”

Local media reported the woman was a regular swimmer and had been swimming with a group when the attack occurred. A local community group said other swimmers had spotted a shark’s tail and fin. The group said the woman sustained “severe injuries to the right side of her arm and leg.” 

“We all realized she’d been bitten by a shark, and she was in a very bad way,” a witness told public broadcaster SABC. “The bites were very severe, but there were only two, one on her thigh and one on her upper arm.”    

After the attack, the municipality closed nearby beaches and urged the public to stay out of the water.

“It has been confirmed that a shark attack occurred at Orient Beach this morning, and this resulted in a tragic incident,” the local municipality said in a statement.

The incident comes about one month after a man was killed by a shark in front of beachgoers as he swam off a Western Australian city shore.

There were 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide in 2025, up from 47 the previous year, including nine fatalities, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File. There was one unprovoked attack in South Africa last year, which was fatal. By contrast, there were 25 unprovoked attacks in the U.S. (one fatal) and 21 unprovoked attacks in Australia (five fatal).

In 2022, there were two fatal shark attacks in South Africa, including a 39-year-old woman who was on vacation with her husband and young child when she was killed.

Researchers say encounters can be influenced by a range of factors, including growing coastal populations, increased use of marine waters, environmental changes and shifts in the distribution of sharks and their prey.