Terrifying moment shark launches vicious attack sending holidaymakers fleeing for their lives at Caribbean tourist spot

TERRIFIED tourists were seen running from the water to the shore of a famed island north of Colombia as a shark viciously attacked its prey in the sea.

The horror moment came after an Italian holidaymaker was killed in a shark attack on the same Caribbean island of San Andres in 2022.

On Friday, a man was captured on video fleeing the water with a toddler in his arms at a crowded white-sand beach called Spratt Bight.

A shark thrashed around in the sea only a short distance from the man and child as women screamed on the shoreline.

Dozens of holidaymakers watched the shark and beckoned to their friends and relatives still in the water to head to dry land, as some filmed the shocking moment on their mobile phones.

One person, believed to be a worker, approached the shark while on a jetski and drove around it in circles in an apparent attempt to frighten it away from the shore.

It later emerged that the shark, described locally as a hammerhead, was attacking a manta ray.

Island sustainable development organisation Coralina criticised the person driving the jetski and insisted there was no reason for people to panic, stating: "They are hammerhead sharks hunting manta rays, they're part of their diet.

"Humans are not part of the diet of sharks and even less so with this type of shark, so what people need to do is be careful.

"Sharks are a fundamental part of trophic networks."

Marine biology expert Sandra Escobar added: “The important thing is that these incidents not lead to people attacking sharks and regarding them as enemies.”

Italian tourist Antonio Straccialini, 56, lost a large chunk of his right thigh in March 2022 when he was bitten by an eight-foot tiger shark in a popular-snorkelling area called La Piscinita on San Andres.

Graphic images published by local press and on social media at the time showed him lying on his back with blood dripping from his wound before he was taken to hospital.

He went into hypovolemic shock and died as a result of the severe blood loss he suffered.

According to horrified witnesses, he cried out for help after being bitten by the beast.

A Colombian free diver named Cristian Castano was bitten by a shark off San Andres in July last year.

Following the attack, he posted a picture from hospital which showed him doing the thumbs-up gesture with his forearms in bandages.

San Andres, about 470 miles north of the Colombian mainland, is part of Colombia but has been historically tied to the UK.

English settlers coming from Barbados and England settled in San Andres and the neighbouring island of Providence in the 17th century.

Welsh privateer Sir Henry Morgan used it in 1670 as one of the centres of his operations. After a failed Spanish invasion of the islands in 1635, they were controlled by England until 1787.