In Norway, a polar bear attacked a campsite and injured a tourist

A polar bear attacked a campsite on the Svalbard Islands in Norway. One woman was injured.

This is reported by the Associated Press.

The French tourist, whose name has not been released, was a member of a tourist group of 25 people who camped in the central part of the Svalbard archipelago. The campsite was set up opposite the fjord near Longyearbyen, the northernmost settlement in the world with a population of over a thousand inhabitants.

Reports of the bear attack were received in the morning around 8:30, the chief of the local police, Stein Olav Bradley, flew to the scene by helicopter.

"The French woman suffered an injury to her hand. The polar bear was shot at, chased away," he said.

He added that the polar bear was injured and "people on the spot are thinking about what to do with it."

The victim was taken to a hospital in Longyr by helicopter. The newspaper of the Arctic archipelago, Svalbardposten, reported that the victim was a woman in her 40s. According to a representative of the local hospital, Solveig Jacobsen, she received minor injuries.

• Authorities are warning visitors to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard who choose to sleep outdoors that they must carry firearms. Since the 1970s, polar bears have killed at least five people on the islands of the archipelago. The last time this happened was in 2020. Then a 38-year-old Dutchman died after being attacked by a bear.
• In 2015, a polar bear dragged a Czech tourist out of his tent, clawing at the manʼs back, and the animal was shot away. Authorities later found and killed the bear.