New Video: Horses With Broken Legs, Open Wounds at Great Pyramid of Giza
New Video: Horses With Broken Legs, Open Wounds at Great Pyramid of Giza
Cruel Status Quo Continues as Officials Pay Lip Service to Better Treatment
London – Animal protectionists are outraged that even though PETA Asia has sent new video footage to Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities showing horses with open sores and severe, untreated injuries – including broken legs – trying to subsist by eating from rubbish dumps, the ministry has responded by informing the group that it won’t be providing the horses with water or shade until the last half of 2023. Just recently, PETA Asia released a video of a collapsed horse at the Great Pyramid of Giza but received no reply from the ministry. The ministry has also failed to provide a definite date for its implementation of electric carts, even though it had previously pledged to ban the use of horses and other animals at tourist sites.
“Visitors go to Egypt to see magnificent archaeological sites and are appalled to witness wounded, starving horses living off rubbish and baking under the hot sun,” says PETA Vice President Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa to step up and ensure that horses at least get shade, food, and water now – not next year – and to start switching to eco-friendly electric carts.”
It has now been three years since a PETA Asia investigation revealed appalling abuse at the top tourism destinations in Egypt – such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, Saqqara, and Luxor – including horses forced to haul visitors in carriages in blistering heat without shade, food, or water. Video footage showed handlers in Giza violently beating a horse who had collapsed on her side while being forced to pull a carriage. She was severely injured by her fall, but they continued to beat her until she got back up.
Three years after the investigation, some electric vehicles have finally been introduced to the site. While they are a welcome change, all horse-drawn carriages need to be removed – horses can’t wait any longer.
PETA Asia’s letter to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is available upon request.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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