A tourist has been killed by a hippo bite while taking pictures on the edge of Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley, just hours after a fisherman was mauled to death by one of the animals in the same area.

A second tourist was injured in the incident on Saturday night and received treatment in the local hospital in Naivasha, north-west of Nairobi, the Kenya wildlife service said in a statement.

“The man was bitten on the chest and his injuries were serious and he died minutes after he was retrieved from the lake,” said Rift Valley head of criminal investigations Gideon Kibunja.

In the same area, a Kenyan fisherman was attacked by another hippo a few miles from where the tourists, both from China, were attacked on Saturday, a police official said.

The deaths bring to six the number of people who have been killed by hippos around Lake Naivasha so far this year.



Wildlife service spokesman Paul Udoto said the circumstances are not clear in which the two tourists were attacked. He said attacks on tourists were rare because they are usually protected by guides.

He said hippos and lone buffalos pose the greatest danger to humans and there have been many attacks in which civilians and even rangers have lost their lives.