Meet Ritwika Sree, the 9-year-old girl who conquered Africa's highest peak

What is a 9-year-old girl supposed to do apart from attending school and playing? Well, precious little unless one is speaking of Ritwika Sree.

When children are mostly confined to their homes and attending school online, this girl from Hyderabad scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak of Africa, thereby becoming the youngest in Asia continent and the second youngest in the world to conquer this 5,895 metre (18,652 feet) peak located in Tanjania.

She achieved the feat on February 25. She was helped by her father Kadapala Sankar, who is a cricket coach and a sports coordinator, in the conquest.

Incidentally, the highest peak in the world Mount Everest is 8,848 metres high and Malavath Poorna, who scaled it in May 2014 when she was 13 years 11 months old, is the youngest Indian and the second youngest in the world to conquer that summit. Poorna was just one month older than American boy Jordan Romero who became the world’s youngest to scale the peak in 2010.

|Sree, who is a class two student, stood on Gilman’s Point that is one of the summit points of Kilimanjaro.

The mountain is famous for being a dormant volcano. There are three volcano cones, of which one, known as Kibo, could erupt again.

Climbing Kilimanjaro is strenuous since it involves about a week of hiking continuously that strains the limbs. About 30,000 people try to climb the peak every year and about 10 fatalities are recorded annually.

The girl underwent a rock climbing course at the Rock Climbing School in Bhongir in Telangana state. She also got training in Ladakh.

She was congratulated by state government officials who wrote, “…You have grabbed the opportunity despite many odds. Keep inspiring.”

The oldest person to climb Kilimanjaro was Anne Lorimor, who scaled it in July 2019 when she was 89. The feat earned her a place in the Guinness Book of Records.