A 12-year-old American boy is in stable condition after being attacked by a shark in the Bahamas, authorities said Wednesday.
The boy was on a tour of the Exuma Cays with his family when the incident occurred, according to a statement from the Royal Bahamas Police Force. He was swimming in Staniel Cay, along with his brother, when he was attacked by the shark at around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
The RBPF did not specify what injuries the boy sustained, but said he was transported by boat to New Providence, the most populous island in the Bahamas and home to the country’s capital city of Nassau. He received medical treatment, police said. His condition is stable as of Wednesday.
The Exuma Cays are popular for swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving. The waters off Staniel Cay hold coral reefs and shipwrecks, and are home to a range of wildlife including sea turtles, stingrays and sharks. The Royal Bahamas Police Force did not specify what kind of shark bit the boy.
The Bahamas, a range of over 700 islands, has one of the world’s highest rates of unprovoked shark attacks. While the country is small, it has the ninth-highest number of such attacks according to the International Shark Attack File, a database that tracks human-shark encounters around the world. However, the attacks are still extremely rare: The database shows just 30 confirmed, unprovoked shark attacks in the Bahamas over the past 400 years.
Multiple Americans have been injured by shark attacks in the Bahamas in recent years. In February 2025, two American women were attacked while swimming off Bimini Bay, in the westernmost part of the Bahamas. One woman was seriously injured.
Later, in August 2025, a 63-year-old American man was severely injured when he was attacked by a shark while spearfishing off the island of Abaco. The man was airlifted to the United States for additional treatment.
In January 2024, a 10-year-old boy from Maryland was bitten on the leg by a shark and hospitalized. A Boston woman died after being attacked by a shark while paddleboarding with a family member in December 2023.