At least 11 people, including women, children, and a baby, are missing after a hippopotamus capsized a passenger boat on the Sassandra River in western Ivory Coast on Friday, authorities said.The boat, carrying 14 passengers, overturned in Buyo on the morning of September 5 after a hippo collided with it, according to the nation’s minister of cohesion and solidarity, Myss Belmonde Dogo.“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,” Dogo said in a statement shared on Facebook.Three people survived the tragedy. “The search continues in hopes of finding missing victims,” the minister added, expressing solidarity with grieving families. “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.”

Deadly encounters with hippos

Ivory Coast is home to an estimated 500 hippos, mostly concentrated in southern rivers. While often seen as docile, hippos are among Africa’s most dangerous animals and frequently cause deadly encounters with humans.A 2022 study by Ivorian researchers found hippos were the species most frequently involved in human-animal collisions leading to death or injury in the country.The tragedy comes amid a steep decline in the hippo population in Ivory Coast over the past two decades, due in part to hunting and habitat loss. An African Zoology study noted that during the rainy season, hippos disperse into smaller tributaries and downstream toward the coast, often bringing them into closer contact with people.Local authorities and rescue teams continue searching for the missing as the community reels from the latest incident.