I am researching the White Nile as a destination for a high school group. One of our families top concerns will be safety. Can anyone share with me the safety concerns and reports I should research/be aware of as I make this proposal?

Thank you for any feedback/connections.

David Hughes
New River Academy

There is an In Between Swim Pod Cast about an expedition to the White Nile you should really listen to. Go over to Itunes and check it out if you haven't already.

It's towards the end of Back to the Core episode but the white nile is touched on by a few of the podcasts (tyler bradt, etc.).

As with 99% of African countries, you'll have your standard concerns.... Malaria, spiders, snakes, ultra dodgy hospitals etc. Nothing too bad, just stay away from hospitals!

If you do get injured and depending on the injury, fly home, simple. An American friend of mine (living here for a few years now) got hurt on the Nile and says you'd rather want to doctor yourself than spend any time in a hospital there, seriously. But that much should be obvious anyway.

Hundreds of people go and they're all fine. Mate of mine went last year and got some weird fungus growing on his foot. He lived, of course

AdrianTregoning wrote:

As with 99% of African countries...

How beautifully diplomatic

I mostly exclude South Africa from that statement...

With respect to safety, I think you should split it up into on-river safety and off.
I presume you mean the White Nile near Jinga?

Lots of back packers/overlanders pass thru here.

The river itself is pretty good wrt dangers you'd normally expect with big volume water. And there are lots of access points, it's not like the Zambezi or Colorado that are in deep gorges.

Off river is a bit different. Is a malarial area and sure hospitals probably not somewhere you'd want anything really intricate done to you, altho Jinga the nearby town has what seemed to me to be a reasonable clinic. The river water is pretty clean, I don't think many people get sick from it after rafting o kayaking. The risk from robbery or violent crime is pretty low too I think, compared to any other African river. Well, is probably same as the Zambezi.

I'd ask Jamie at kayakthenile.com for his feed back on this as well. He's an honest, straight forward guy.
Best regards,
Alan Jarvis