إنقاذ الحياة البرية

Alaa was on her way shopping in Cairo when she was attacked by a stray dog, in one of the incidents that have become a recurring scene and a problematic phenomenon that is worsening in the streets of Egypt. Alaa Hilal, a 38-year-old housewife, told AFP, “I got out of my car and saw a big dog in the street. It approached me and bit me without barking or doing anything else,” adding that she was bitten in the leg. In addition to traffic congestion and pollution resulting from waste, Cairo, a city with a population of twenty million people, suffers from a growing problem with the number of stray dogs in its streets and suburbs. Complaints of dog attacks, exposure to rabies, and sometimes death raise questions regarding the seriousness of this phenomenon. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there were 400,000 cases of dog bites in 2017, an increase of 100,000 cases over the previous year, and over the past four years, 231 people died from dogs. Alaa, who was transported after the dog bite to a nearby hospital, is the ninth person to be bitten by the same dog. She says, “Because of this incident, I became worried and no longer wanted to live in the same place with them.” There is no official data on the number of stray dogs, but activists say they are more than a million. Animal rights advocates often attack the government and accuse it of killing dogs en masse. In 2017, the authorities killed more than 17,000 stray dogs after numerous complaints due to dog attacks and biting incidents in Beni Suef, south of Cairo, according to a report issued in August by the governorate’s veterinary department. Ahmed Al-Shorbaji, an animal protection activist who established a shelter for dogs in a desert area west of Cairo, believes that the solution lies in sterilizing dogs to prevent them from breeding and providing rabies vaccines, in addition to removing garbage, which plays a major role in exacerbating this phenomenon. For more on Euronews: And for people to do what they love... Watch how dogs are boiled, grilled, and then served on tables in Cambodia? Watch: A cafe dedicated to “working dogs” in Shanghai, China