Akissi Kouamé

Brigadier-General Akissi Kouamé (1 January 1955 – 29 September 2022) was an Ivorian army officer. She joined the army's medical service in 1981, whilst still a medical student. Kouamé became the first woman in the army to qualify as a paratrooper and in 2012 became its first female general.

Early and personal life Kouamé was born on 1 January 1955 in Singrobo, Tiassalé in the Ivory Coast, and was one of ten children. Kouamé was in a customary marriage with Sylla Maciré by 2017 but split from him that year after he was arrested by police on fraud charges. Maciré committed suicide in February 2018.

Military career Kouamé was educated at home, at a school run by nuns, and at Sainte-Marie High School before studying medicine at the University of Abidjan. On 10 January 1981 – in her fifth year of medical school – she joined the Ivorian army and from July to September undertook basic training at the Armed Forces School in Bouaké.

In 1985, Kouamé was appointed head of the military's gynaecology and obstetrics department and studied for five years to achieve a certificate of competency in gynaecological ultrasound techniques at the University of Abidjan and in Brest, France. She attended a series of training courses in reproductive health and care in HIV/AIDS patients at the National Office for Family and Population in Tunisia in 1991, 1995 and 1998. On 1 July 1992, Kouamé was promoted to the rank of commandant (equivalent to major). She received training in health resources management for developing countries from the Université libre de Bruxelles in 1995. In 1996, she was trained in providing healthcare education and in social communication by the University of Liège and on 1 October was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and appointed coordinator of reproductive health in the armed forces. In this role, Kouamé initiated the appointment of midwives to the army health service. Kouamé died in Abidjan on 29 September 2022, at the age of 67.