“It's heartbreaking,” says Dawn Foote, 48, founder of the Tala Cats shelter.
With the pandemic, more and more cats are being abandoned on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
The health crisis has also become an economic crisis for many.
Expats or binationals have left without being able to bring their pets.
“People right now just don't have the money, and it's very expensive to transport a cat to another country,” Ms. Foote continues, referring to the vaccines and the mandatory feline passport.
It also specifies that some Cypriots can no longer pay for the food or veterinary expenses of their animals.
She estimates a 30% increase in dropouts since the start of the pandemic, "they don't know how to survive," adds the director.
Fortunately, the abandoned cats are taken in at his refuge in the hills surrounding the town of Paphos.
While waiting to find them a new home, the volunteers do their best to care for, feed and sterilize them.
In Cyprus, there are more cats than inhabitants.
Legend has it that the Roman Empress Helena brought cats to Cyprus to get rid of the snakes.
But in reality, the presence of the animal on this island dates back to much further than the 4th century.
Thanks to excavations of Neolithic villages, remains of cats have been discovered and proved the domestication of the animal on the island several thousand years before Jesus Christ.