Ivory Coast: Hippo capsizes boat, leaving children and baby unaccounted for as search continues

A desperate search is underway in the Ivory Coast after a hippo capsized a boat carrying 14 passengers on the Sassandra River, leaving 11 people — including children and a baby — missing and feared dead.

The tragedy struck on the morning of Friday, September 5, when the vessel, carrying 14 people, overturned in Buyo, a town in the south-west of the country.

The Ivory Coast’s Minister of Cohesion and Solidarity, Myss Belmonde Dogo, confirmed the horrifying details in a statement shared to Facebook.

“It is with deep sorrow that we learned that 11 people, including women, girls and an infant, have gone missing following a boat capsized caused by a hippo,” she said.

Three passengers managed to survive, but hopes of finding the missing alive are fading, People reported.

“The search continues in hopes of finding missing victims,” Ms Dogo added.

“Distressed by this tragedy that upsets us all, the Gouvernement de Côte d’Ivoire joins the pain of the parents and relatives of the deceased and expresses its solidarity to the survivors.”

A deadly animal encounter

Hippos, despite their reputation as lumbering giants, are considered Africa’s most dangerous large animal, killing an estimated 500 people every year.

They are notoriously aggressive, territorial and unpredictable, and researchers say collisions with hippos are the most common cause of human deaths linked to wildlife in the Ivory Coast.

An estimated 500 hippos still roam the country’s southern rivers, but their population has declined sharply over the past two decades due to hunting and human encroachment, BBC Wildlife reported.

A 2022 African Zoology study noted that during the rainy season, hippos often disperse into smaller tributaries and even downstream toward coastal areas, increasing the chance of encounters with villagers and fishermen.

“Small herds of common hippos have become resident,” the study said, warning that agricultural expansion is pushing humans and hippos into increasingly dangerous contact.

A nation in mourning

The Sassandra River tragedy has shocked communities across the Ivory Coast.

For locals, boat travel is a daily reality and one that now carries a shadow of fear.

The families of the missing, already facing the agony of uncertainty, are now contending with the almost unthinkable: children and a baby lost in a violent instant.

International concern is also mounting, with comparisons to other recent wildlife-human clashes across Africa.

The scale of the loss has drawn attention not only to the dangers posed by hippos but also to the urgent need for improved safety measures for communities living along rivers.

Authorities continue to search the river in hopes of recovering the missing, though officials have admitted the chances of survival diminish with every passing hour.