Missing fisherman feared dead after being 'attacked by two sharks'

A missing fisherman is feared dead, believed to have been attacked by two sharks.

The 37-year-old was fishing when he disappeared underwater while dragging in a huge haul of sardines from a beach in South Africa on Friday afternoon. Two friends of the fisherman rushed to the spot where he went missing but retreated when they spotted two sharks, believed to be bronze whalers, in the area, according to reports.

The incident happened on a beach popular with divers and surfers at Mfazazana in Kwa-Zulu Natal province, 60 miles south of Durban. A National Sea Rescue Institute spokesman confirmed the man is missing, saying: "A 37-year-old local man is reported missing following a shark incident that involved three local fishermen.

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"We and the SA police and the Water Policing and Diving Services unit were told a man disappeared under the water after a shark surfaced where he was netting. It appears that at least one friend attempted to intervene but it is believed that he was confronted by at least two sharks in the surf and he retreated to the shoreline.

"It is believed the sharks were feeding on a school of sardines at the time. A large scale search is underway but so far no sign of the missing man has been found." In the past 25 years, 37 people have been killed by sharks off the coast of South Africa with the last being restauranteur Kimon Bisogno, 39, in September 2022.

The pizza shop boss was swimming in Plettenberg Bay when a great white shark attacked her while husband Diego Milesi, 40, and daughter Luna, five, were on the beach. In June 2022 married dad and stockbroker Bruce Wolov, 63 - a snorkeller and long distance swimmer – was attacked and killed by a great white in the same bay.

The year before Robert Frauestein, 38, was killed by a suspected great white at Chinsta, Eastern Cape, but only his bodyboard with huge bite marks was found. Each year billions of sardines run 1,000 miles up the coast from Cape Town to Mozambique in shoals up to four miles long, 1.5 miles wide and 90ft deep.

Tens of thousands of dolphins lay in wait for them and round them up into bait balls 60ft in diameter and 20ft deep, and then attack - followed by hungry sharks. The feeding frenzy occurs between May and July and is the biggest annual migration in the world as the sardines head for cold water to spawn.

Charter boat skipper Walter Bernadis runs a company African Watersports at Port St Johns on the Wild Coast in Eastern Cape that takes tourists out to watch. He said: "When the sardines are running it is on fire out there and you can see hundreds of sharks tearing into the sardines in a feeding frenzy like no other.

"A photographer with us Sergio Lucas got these amazing shots of a bronze whaler shark doing a somersault over the top of a bait ball as it feasted on sardines. There are millions and millions heading past us on the cold Agulhas current but hundreds of thousands never make it thanks to the waiting dolphins and sharks. We call it the Greatest Shoal on Earth and it never fails to deliver."

Local communities who live on or near the coast along the shoal route flock to the coast in their thousands with large nets they fill every day to feed their villages.