8.9.2025
Eleven persons including a baby are missing after the boat they were travelling on a river was attacked by a Hippopotamus.
According to Cote d’Ivoire government official 14 people were on the boat which was travelling on the Sassandra River in the southwestern town of Buyo last Friday when the hippo pounced on it.
“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.
“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,” said the Ivorian Minister of Cohesion and Solidarity Myss Belmonde Dogo in a statement on Facebook.
Search and rescue operations are underway to find the missing, with only three people confirmed to have survived the freak accident.
In 2022, Ivory Coast university researchers found that hippos are the most common cause of animal attacks that cause deaths or injuries in the country.
Lower estimates of how many people are killed by hippos each year worldwide start at around 500, according to CBS News.
Hippos on the boat way...