A group of around thirty tourists was attacked on Tuesday August 22 by a swarm of killer bees on a beach on Ilet la Mère in French Guiana, according to information from the local television channel Guyane La 1ère.
One of the visitors stung several times, a 65-year-old woman, succumbed to this attack, while thirteen people ended up in hospital, including four in absolute emergency.
Rescuers quickly went to the scene to take away the injured, some of whom were allergic to poisonous stings. The Cayenne Hospital Center (CHC) thus triggered the “White Plan” on Tuesday.
“Traumatizing”: a witness tells
Secondly, Xavier, one of the eyewitnesses to the attack, told Guyana La 1ère of the shock of the traumatic event he witnessed.
“We were enjoying the beach and all of a sudden we started to hear screams coming from the bathers, they started banging their heads, diving and screaming”, he relates. “At first we thought they were arguing but then I saw everyone on the beach start running and screaming. And I saw a swarm of bees.”
He pursues: “Lto we said to ourselves ‘we leave all the business’ and we ran into the forest. We came back afterwards, near the docks, we saw firefighters with the victims, people were covered in bites, they had stings all over their faces. It’s traumatic.”
An advanced medical post was immediately set up at the Dégrad-Des-Cannes marina to accommodate the 34 tourists affected.
“Killer bees are born from a cross between different species. They are more aggressive than the bees of the races from which they come”, explains BFMTV. On the spot in Guyana, an investigation is opened to establish what exact type of bees attacked this group of tourists and for what reasons.
