Boy bitten in Benidorm beach ‘shark’ attack

According to reports, a beach was cleared in Benidorm, Spain, after a 10-year-old boy was bitten by a two-foot long ‘mystery fish’.

The Mirror has claimed that the youngster was left with a large bite mark just above his waist after he spotted the creature and tried to touch it.

Coast guards cleared the water following the incident as authorities tried to track down the fish.

Local reports then claimed that the ‘mystery fish’ was a shark.

A Benidorm news website tweeted: “The emergency services have evacuated Benidorm beach because of a shark.”

The beach was reopened later on in the day when authorities failed to find the ’shark’.

Authorities have now sent a photo of the boy’s injury to marine wildlife experts in the Spanish city of Valencia where they can determine what sort of animal met him in the sea.

The boy was treated at a first aid point on the beach and did not need to go to hospital.

Last year a 30-year-old woman was also bitten on the same beach, with the incident being blamed on a tiger shark.

Shark attacks in the Mediterranean are not very common. Sharks do not usually target humans unless out of curiosity.

Countless sharks are killed to protect people from rare attacks every year despite human fatalities being considerably low.

For every human killed by a shark approx 2 million sharks are killed.

Find out more about shark conservation at www.sharktrust.org