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Hundreds of Tourists Evacuated From Hotel in Egypt After Britons’ Sudden Death Hundreds of Tourists Evacuated From Hotel in Egypt After Britons’ Sudden Death
(about 9 hours later)
CAIRO — Prompted by the unexplained death of a middle-aged British couple at an Egyptian Red Sea resort this week, their tour company was evacuating 300 foreign guests from their hotel on Friday after it received reports that other guests had also fallen ill. CAIRO — A British couple are vacationing at a Red Sea resort in Egypt with their daughter and three grandchildren.
The couple, John and Susan Cooper, of Lancashire, England, died within hours of each other at the resort in Hurghada on Tuesday. Mr. Cooper, 69, was found dead in his hotel room midmorning, the Egyptian authorities said, while Ms. Cooper, 64, who suddenly fell ill, died six hours later after being taken to a hospital. One morning, the man, a 69-year-old English builder, collapses in his hotel room in front of his wife and daughter and is pronounced dead. Hours later his wife, 64, is taken to a hospital where she, too, dies.
The evacuation of the other guests at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel on Friday was the latest blow to Egypt’s tourism industry, which, despite a modest upswing this year, is still struggling to recover from years of political turmoil, plane crashes and Islamist attacks. The Egyptian authorities insist the couple, seen in pictures as tanned, smiling and healthy-looking, have died from natural causes. But other guests at the hotel complain of upset stomachs from bad food. And their daughter, who was with them during their final hours, says she believes “something suspicious” happened.
Egyptian officials said that the couple had died of natural causes. But their travel company, Thomas Cook, said on Thursday night that the circumstances of their deaths were still unclear and that it had received reports of a “raised level of illness among guests.” The sudden deaths on Tuesday of John and Susan Cooper prompted their travel company to evacuate all of its guests in the hotel on Friday, amid a welter of conflicting accounts from guests, managers and Egyptian officials about what led to the couple’s demise.
“As a precautionary measure, we have taken a decision to remove all our customers from this hotel,” the company said in a statement. “We are aware of the speculation in some of today’s media that their deaths may have been caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Currently, we have no evidence to support this.” Thomas Cook, one of the best-known package holiday companies in Britain, said it was evacuating its complement of 301 guests from the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the coastal resort Hurghada as a precaution following reports of a “raised level of illness among guests.”
That speculation, carried mostly in the British tabloid media, cited the deaths in 2006 of two children from carbon monoxide poisoning in their hotel room during a holiday in Greece. That tragedy drew sharp criticism for Thomas Cook. Hotel management denied that there was an unusual level of sickness, and, like Egyptian officials, insisted that the couple from Lancashire — where Ms. Cooper worked at a Thomas Cook branch — had died from natural causes. But by Friday evening, about half of the 301 guests had been flown out of Egypt, and the remainder had moved to nearby resorts, a Thomas Cook spokeswoman said.
As hundreds of mostly British vacationers prepared to fly out of Egypt on Friday, some took to social media to offer other explanations, such as food poisoning, that deepened the sense of confusion surrounding the couple’s death. However, about 1,600 other guests remained in the hotel, said Sally Khattab, the hotel’s marketing director. She added that the hotel had recently passed a Thomas Cook audit with flying colors.
In its statement, the Red Sea governorate, which covers the area where the couple died, said that there was no suspicion of “criminal activity.” An initial examination by Egyptian health officials showed that Mr. Cooper had suffered a heart attack, the authorities said. The evacuation was a major blow to Egypt’s tourist industry which, despite a modest upswing this year, is struggling to recover from years of political turmoil, plane crashes and Islamist violence that had caused a steep drop in visitors since 2010.
Ms. Cooper was transferred to a hospital “in a state of fainting,” the authorities said. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate her, and Egyptian officials determined that she had died from “a drop in blood circulation and respiratory functions with no criminal suspicions.” In the past, Egypt’s ability to weather such crises has been hampered by officials’ lack of transparency. On Friday, Egypt’s tourism minister, Rania Al-Mashat, and other officials, citing initial medical reports, insisted that the Coopers had died of natural causes. But some foreign guests had trouble believing them.
The prosecutors office has taken a statement from the couple’s daughter, who was on vacation with them, and has ordered autopsies. Ms. Cooper was an employee of the Thomas Cook branch in Lancashire. On social media, some guests said they had been served tainted food at the hotel or were afraid to eat at its restaurants. Others put forth the theory that the Coopers had died from carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly caused by a faulty air-conditioning unit in their room. Thomas Cook denied the carbon monoxide theory but admitted it had little idea what actually had caused the deaths.
The Coopers’ deaths prompted criticism of how officials had handled the situation from other guests at the hotel, many of whom also complained of upset stomachs. Though the hotel has an excellent rating on the travel website TripAdvisor, dozens of comments going back to 2014 complain of problems with the food. “As a family, we are devastated,” the couple’s daughter, Kelly Ormerod, who had come to the resort with her three children, said in a statement.
Dieter Geiger, general manager of the hotel, said in an email on Friday that the company was deeply saddened by the deaths. Ms. Ormerod told Sky News her parents were in “perfect health” when they went to bed on Monday, with no signs of food poisoning. But when she found them in their room at 11 a.m. the following morning, they were “extremely ill and needed help.”
“There are no indications to support allegations of an increased incidence of illness at the hotel,” he said, calling such reports “rash speculations.” Her father, who was especially sick, died soon after the arrival of emergency responders.
In interviews to reporters and postings on social media, hotel guests lamented what they called a lack of information on the Britons’ deaths. Five hours later her mother was taken to a hospital, Ms. Ormerod told Sky News.
Janette Rawlingson, a guest who flew out to the resort with her two children just as news of the Coopers’ deaths emerged, told the BBC that she should have been given the option to cancel the trip. Egyptian officials described Susan Cooper as having been “in a state of fainting.” After she was pronounced dead an hour later, officials determined that she had died from “a drop in blood circulation and respiratory functions with no criminal suspicions.”
“Everybody is really worried,” Ms. Rawlingson said. “The lack of answers from Thomas Cook is really disappointing.” She added, “We’ve been told that they don’t know what’s happened to the guests at all.” Ms. Ormerod said that her parents had no known health problems. “I watched them die before my very eyes and they had exactly the same symptoms,” she said. “I believe something suspicious has gone on. I don’t believe anyone has entered the room, but something has happened in that room and caused them to be taken away from us.”
Ms. Rawlingson said she and her family were worried about the food at the hotel complex, a group of cream-colored Mediterranean style buildings hugging large pools, water slides and pathways lined with palm trees. The family, she added, was “in utter shock.”
“I’ve had an upset stomach overnight,” she said. “Only because of my persistence, they went out to a local supermarket to get my two children some food, because I didn’t want them eating in the restaurant, because basically they don’t know what has happened at all.” The prosecutor’s office has taken a statement from Ms. Ormerod and ordered autopsies.
“We’ve worked incredibly hard, we’ve saved hard for a summer holiday with the family, and this is what’s happened,” Ms. Rawlingson said. In its own statement, the prosecutor’s office appeared to rule out foul play, saying that investigators had found “no evidence of physical violence or resistance” in the couple’s room.
Egypt’s tourism industry has been hammered by a series of calamities and persistent terrorist attacks over the years. The country has yet to recover the record numbers of tourists seen in 2010, when overnight visits hit 14.1 million, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Overnight stays by visitors stood at 5.3 million in 2016, according to the agency. Thomas Cook said it had audited the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel last month, when it received a 96 percent score. Nick Harris of Simpson Millar, a law firm that represents holiday travel claims, said his firm had notice of 20 cases of gastric illness against Thomas Cook at the hotel since 2014.
Tourism fell after an uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak, the strongman who led Egypt for 30 years, in 2011. The industry recovered somewhat in 2012 and 2014, but another uprising in 2013 that installed Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government has become increasingly authoritarian, began to erode those gains. The hotel’s general manager, Dieter Geiger, said in an email that allegations of increased sickness at the hotel in recent days were “rash speculations.” He referred to the preliminary doctors’ report indicating the Coopers had died from natural causes.
In 2015, a Russian charter jet crashed shortly after taking off from the area’s biggest resort, Sharm el Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for blowing up the plane, saying it had smuggled a bomb onboard Janette Rawlingson, a guest who arrived at the resort with her two children just as news of the Coopers’ deaths emerged publicly, told the BBC that she should have been given the option to cancel the trip.
Since then, Britain has banned direct flights to Sharm el Sheikh, despite Egypt’s efforts to upgrade security at the airport and despite protests from Egyptian officials. “Everybody is really worried,” Ms. Rawlingson said. “The lack of answers from Thomas Cook is really disappointing.”
In July 2017, an Egyptian man unleashed a deadly knife attack on a public beach in Hurghada, stabbing numerous tourists and killing two Germans and a Czech citizen. Ms. Rawlingson said she and her family were concerned about the food at the hotel complex, a group of cream-colored Mediterranean style buildings hugging large pools, water slides and pathways lined with palm trees. “I’ve had an upset stomach overnight,” she said.
A year earlier, two Islamist extremists armed with knives targeted a restaurant in Hurghada. One of the assailants was killed by the police, and the other was captured. No tourists were killed. Egypt’s tourism industry has been hammered by a series of calamities and terrorist attacks over the years. Since 2010, when overnight stays hit a record 14.1 million, the numbers have been steadily falling, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Overnight stays by visitors stood at 5.3 million in 2016, according to the agency.
And in 2014, a deadly explosion ripped through a tour bus carrying 30 people in a resort town in the Sinai Peninsula, the first deadly attack on tourists by militants in Egypt in years. Tourists were first deterred by the Arab Spring in 2011 and the turmoil of a military-backed takeover in 2013. An Islamic State bomb downed a Russian jetliner filled with tourists in 2015. And there have been a handful of smaller terrorist acts targeting tourists, including a stabbing incident in Hurghada last year.
Egypt has seen an uptick in tourism recently, however, with revenues rising 211.8 percent year on year, to $5.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017, according to the government this week. The 2015 plane bombing caused Britain to halt all direct flights to Egypt’s main Red Sea resort, Sharm el Sheikh, amid security scares. Since then some British tourist traffic has been diverted to Hurghada, which is known for its beaches, scuba diving and package holiday hotels.
In response to the Coopers’ deaths, a spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Cairo said: “We continue to support the family of a couple who died in Hurghada, Egypt.” The embassy added that anyone staying at the hotel should follow the advice of the tour operator and the local authorities. Egypt has seen an uptick in tourists in the past few years, in part because of an influx of tourists from China. The government reported a 212 percent increase in tourist revenues, to $5.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017 compared with the same time period in 2016, Reuters reported.
One of the best-known package holiday companies in Britain, Thomas Cook has its roots in Egypt. The company’s eponymous founder was a pioneer of mass tourism in the late 19th century, and built his reputation partly on boat cruises along the Nile. One of the best-known package holiday companies in Britain, Thomas Cook has roots in Egypt. The company’s eponymous founder was a pioneer of mass tourism in the late 19th century and built his reputation partly on boat cruises along the Nile.
But the tour operator faced sharp criticism over safety standards at its resorts after the deaths of the two children in 2006 from carbon monoxide poisoning on the Greek island of Corfu. But the tour operator faced sharp criticism over safety standards at its resorts after the 2006 deaths of two young siblings from carbon monoxide poisoning on the Greek island of Corfu.
A British inquest into the deaths of the two siblings, ages 6 and 7, found that the travel company had “breached its duty of care” in preventing their deaths, which officials determined had been caused by a faulty water boiler in their hotel room. A British inquest into the deaths of the two children, ages 6 and 7, found that the travel company had “breached its duty of care” by failing to prevent their deaths, which officials determined had been caused by a faulty water boiler in their hotel room.
Three people, including the manager of the hotel, were convicted of manslaughter in 2010 and sentenced to seven years in prison.Three people, including the manager of the hotel, were convicted of manslaughter in 2010 and sentenced to seven years in prison.