A tourist safari in Uganda ended in carnage yesterday when a vehicle carrying foreign visitors collided with an elephant on a game track in Queen Elizabeth National Park. Sources confirm three people are dead and two others critically injured. The elephant, an adult bull, was also killed in the impact.
Witness accounts describe a scene of chaos. The safari vehicle, operated by a local tour company, was returning from a late afternoon game drive when the elephant emerged suddenly from dense bush. The driver attempted to swerve but the animal struck the passenger side, flipping the open-top jeep onto its roof.
“It was like a bomb going off,” a ranger who arrived minutes later told me. “The elephant was thrashing. People were screaming. We pulled two bodies from the wreckage. A third died at the clinic.”
Police have not released the identities of the deceased pending family notification. But sources say the group included British, Australian and South African nationals. The driver, a Ugandan man in his 30s, is in critical condition at a hospital in Kasese.
This is not an isolated incident. In the past year, there have been at least seven reported elephant-vehicle collisions across Uganda’s national parks, two of them fatal. But officials have downplayed the risks, preferring to tout tourism growth figures. Last month, the Uganda Tourism Board announced a 15% increase in visitor numbers for 2024.
“These animals are not props,” a former park warden told me off the record. “When you put tourists in open vehicles and drive through elephant territory at dusk, you are gambling with lives. And the house always wins.”
Documents obtained by this newsroom show that the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has known about dangerous elephant behaviour in the Kasenyi plains area for at least 18 months. A 2023 internal risk assessment flagged the route as “high conflict potential” and recommended restricting vehicle movements after 4pm. That recommendation was never implemented. The collision occurred at 5:47pm.
I asked UWA spokesperson Hilda Mugisa why they ignored the warning. She said the assessment was “under review” and that the authority would “cooperate fully with investigators.” She declined to answer further questions.
The bodies are expected to be repatriated within 48 hours. The British High Commission has confirmed it is providing consular assistance. But for the families, no amount of assistance will bring back their loved ones.
This newsroom will continue to investigate whether this tragedy could have been prevented. I have already filed a freedom of information request for all internal UWA communications regarding elephant management protocols. The response is overdue.
In the meantime, the elephants remain. And the tourists keep coming.
