Icon: enlarge
Around 900 cattle were crammed on board this rusty ship
Photo: JUAN MEDINA / REUTERS
Hundreds of cattle in Spain were slaughtered after a month-long odyssey across the Mediterranean.
The animals had been cooped up on a cargo ship for a total of two and a half months since December in order to be exported from Spain to Turkey.
There, however, they were turned down on suspicion of bluetongue disease.
After a bureaucratic back and forth, the freighter "Karim Allah" has now returned to the port of Cartagena in the southern Spanish region of Murcia.
After unloading, the animals were to be killed directly in a tent at the pier and the carcasses disposed of, as reported by »El País«, among others.
During the months at sea, 22 cattle had already died.
The owner of the cattle had sued the emergency slaughter and was still trying to find a buyer in another country.
It is not possible to sell the animals in Spain because the importation of live cattle into the European Union is prohibited.
Another transport to a third country could no longer be expected of the animals, as the health authorities announced according to »El País«.
On Friday, a court in Madrid then approved the emergency slaughter.
Animal welfare organizations are harshly criticized
Animal welfare organizations sharply criticized the cattle odyssey and spoke out in favor of changing the legislation on animal transport.
Animal Equality calls on the Spanish government, according to "El País", to ban the transport of live animals to countries outside the EU, as other European countries are already doing.
The Spanish animal welfare party PACMA spoke of an "example of the cruelty of the livestock industry and the complicity of the administrations".
The freighter with the cattle left Cartagena on December 18th.
At the destination in the Turkish Mediterranean port of Iskenderun, however, the cattle were turned away by the Turkish authorities because they were suspected of being sick.
Bluetongue is an insect-borne viral disease that affects sheep in particular, but also cattle and goats.
Icon: enlarge
The freighter "Karim Allah" in the port of Cartagena - the animals were no longer allowed to leave the ship
Photo: JUAN MEDINA / REUTERS
The cattle ship then called on Libya to possibly sell the animals there.
But the authorities there also forbade that. In search of animal feed, the "Karim Allah" went on to Tunisia, where the ship was turned away.
It was only in the port of Augusta in Sicily that food could be brought on board.
The animals had only got water for three days, it was said at »El País«.
Then the freighter sailing under the Lebanese flag returned to Cartagena.
According to the state television broadcaster RTVE, around 1,800 young animals from Spain are currently in a similar situation on the cattle freighter "Elbeik" flying the Togo flag, which was also turned away in Turkey and Libya on suspicion of bluetongue.
According to information from trackding services for ships north of Crete, the ship was on a southerly course on Saturday.
Icon: The mirror
hba / dpa