Virunga hippo deaths prompt a warning about river water
VITSHUMBI — Conservation authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have warned residents along the Semuliki River to avoid using water near dead hippos after veterinary tests confirmed anthrax. The advice applies to the area around the carcasses. Residents have also been asked to keep children, livestock and pets away and to leave the dead animals where they find them.
Tests confirm the cause of the deaths
Michael Kambale, a resident of Vitshumbi in North Kivu province, told Al Jazeera that people began noticing dead hippos in mid-September. He said the deaths alarmed residents already living through an Ebola outbreak. On 29 September, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) announced that tests conducted by its teams and veterinarians had identified anthrax as the cause of the hippo deaths. Its notice gave no death toll.
The institute warned against cutting up, moving, burying or burning the carcasses. Its warning also covered the meat trade: residents should avoid buying, selling, transporting or eating meat from animals found dead or visibly ill. The ICCN’s North Kivu office said it had put a response plan in place.
A second outbreak as Virunga’s hippos recover
Virunga National Park lost 65 hippos to anthrax in 2025. A park census in February 2026 subsequently recorded more than 2,700 hippos in 171 groups, including 153 calves. That count provides a measure of the population before the latest deaths, but the scale of the losses along the Semuliki remains unconfirmed.
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