A one-year-old girl has died and a teenage student remains missing after a hippopotamus attacked a canoe carrying 18 people across Kenya’s Tana River, in an incident that has once again highlighted the danger hippos pose to communities living alongside the country’s waterways.
A one-year-old girl has died and a student is still missing after a hippopotamus attacked a canoe on Kenya’s Tana River, capsizing the vessel and throwing 18 passengers, a mix of farmers and children, into the water. The incident occurred on Tuesday during what should have been a routine crossing near Mikinduni Village, on the country’s longest river. Police said 16 of the 18 passengers were rescued from the water following the attack, while the youngest victim drowned and one further passenger remains unaccounted for.
What happened during the crossing
According to police, the canoe capsized after being attacked by a hippopotamus while crossing the Tana River. A 20-month-old girl drowned during the incident, and her body has since been recovered and taken to the mortuary at Hola County Referral Hospital, where a postmortem examination will be carried out.
A second passenger remains missing following the attack. Officials believe the missing individual is a Form Three student, which would place her at around 16 or 17 years old under the Kenyan education system. The student, who attends Chanani Secondary School, had not been located at the time of reporting.
A recurring danger on the Tana River
Despite the tragedy, crossings of this kind remain a regular occurrence in the area, and hippo attacks are known to be common along stretches of the Tana River, reflecting the ongoing risk faced by communities who rely on the waterway for daily travel.
Part of a wider pattern of hippo attacks
The incident comes just days after separate footage emerged showing a hippo charging at a boat carrying tourists in Botswana. The viral video captured the moment the animal suddenly gave chase, forcing those on board to speed away to safety. Describing the encounter, the person filming the footage said: “For a few moments, every single person in the boat was genuinely worried.” Another witness described the moment as “one of the most terrifying moments he’d ever experienced.”
Hippos are responsible for an estimated 500 human deaths across Africa each year, making them one of the world’s deadliest land mammals and statistically more dangerous to humans than lions or elephants.
