Online Reporter
Rutendo Nyeve-Victoria Falls Reporter
AT 47, Philani Moyo of Chisuma Village on the outskirts of Victoria Falls is known to tourists as a world-class white-water rafting guide.
To grieving families and emergency teams, however, he is something else entirely — the man who goes into the river when hope is fading.
Over the years, Moyo has retrieved more than 30 bodies from the Zambezi River, responding to drowning incidents involving tourists, fishermen, worshippers and accident victims swept away by the river’s unforgiving currents.
Born in 1979, Moyo’s relationship with water began early. He first trained as a rafting guide in 1995, laying the foundation for a career that would take him across the world — and later back home, with life-saving purpose.
“The Zambezi was my classroom, but the world became my training ground,” he said.
His expertise was sharpened on some of the world’s most challenging rivers. In 1999, Moyo travelled to Italy, where he trained guides and competed in rafting and kayaking events. He later worked in Austria and Switzerland before moving on to Spain, France, Peru and eventually the United States.
In the US, Moyo spent 12 seasons navigating the fierce rapids of Colorado and other states, mastering rescue techniques that would later prove critical in disaster situations.
When he returned to Zimbabwe, he founded Shockwave Rafting, but his mission quickly expanded beyond adventure tourism.
“We started encountering drowning incidents on the Zambezi. That’s when rescue work became part of our responsibility to the community,” said Moyo.
His work has seen him respond to heartbreaking calls — including the recovery of bodies of local fishermen and, in one tragic incident, two young soccer players who drowned while visiting Victoria Falls.
“We were there to retrieve them,” he said. Perhaps his greatest test came in 2019 during Cyclone Idai, when devastating floods tore through Chimanimani. With roads washed away and rivers raging, national disaster teams called on Moyo’s specialised skills.
“When water is moving that fast, you need people who can read the current. We are trained to deal with three-, four-, even five-metre waves and understand how to manoeuvre in chaos,” he explained.
Just last week, Moyo and his team were again called into action, retrieving the bodies of two members of the Followers of Jesus Christ of God: Ekuphileni in Zion apostolic sect, who were swept away during a baptism ceremony in Victoria Falls.
“It was a very difficult operation, but we managed to recover them,” he said.
The Zambezi River, particularly the stretch below Victoria Falls, is notorious for its deceptive calm and sudden violence, even during low-water periods. Its thunderous rapids have claimed countless lives.
Yet in those roaring waters, Moyo remains a steady presence — calm, precise and compassionate.
For him, the work is not about recognition.
“It’s about bringing closure,” he said.
In a place where the river both gives life and takes it away, Moyo has become its guardian — a man whose greatest victories are not medals or titles, but peace returned to families left behind.
