A 16-year-old has been decapitated by a shark while spearfishing in Jamaica. 

Police said secondary school pupil Jahmari Reid, from the Trelawny area in northwest Jamaica, vanished on Monday while at sea alone.

He was spearfishing in waters just north of the island, near the popular tourist town of Montego Bay.

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Fishermen found his body the following day with injuries consistent with a shark attack, police said.

Local media reported he had been decapitated with one of his arms bitten off, and that efforts to kill the shark and recover the severed head are ongoing.

Jahmari’s father Michael Reid told the Jamaica Observer: “I can’t believe that he went to sea by himself and that was the outcome. Sad to know. I feel so bad.”

Shark attacks are rare, with a total of 69 confirmed unprovoked attacks worldwide and 14 fatalities reported last year, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File.

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Since 1749, only three unprovoked shark attacks have been reported in Jamaica, according to the file, which is administered by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the American Elasmobranch Society.