Authorities promised to protect camels and horses in Egypt. They failed.
| This camel screamed as workers slashed his throat. His legs kicked wildly as he bled out on the killing floor for four agonizing minutes before a worker started hacking into his neck with a machete. He was conscious the whole time. The screams of other camels being violently slaughtered were the last sounds he heard. A new PETA Asia investigation reveals once again that camels like him—who might once have been forced to give rides or stand in the sweltering heat at Egyptian tourist sites—are enduring merciless beatings, extreme deprivation, and constant toil under the burning-hot sun before they eventually collapse or are violently killed. We are urgently pressuring the Egyptian government to take action against this abuse and pushing travel companies to stop supporting it—but we need your help. | | For many camels, the nightmare begins when they're forced onto a truck headed to Birqash Camel Market, the largest such market in Egypt. Denied food and water for as long as 30 hours, some die before they even arrive. Investigators saw frightened animals with bound legs struggling to break free from men who punched them, yanked them, and beat them with sticks, often in their sensitive testicles or to the point of breaking their skin. One man threw sand into a camel's face as the animal cried out. | | After they're sold to Egypt's tourist sites, camels and horses endure daily abuse without rest or relief as workers force the exhausted, injured, dehydrated, and emaciated animals to carry visitors—sometimes to the point of collapse. One horse was blinded—apparently after someone whipped him in the eye. Desperate for food, malnourished horses with open wounds scrounge through garbage dumpsters near the pyramids of Giza. Eventually, many of the camels who are too weak or worn out to carry tourists may be sent back to the market to be sold to slaughterhouses. Others are callously abandoned like trash. At a dump site behind the pyramids, the bodies of dead camels and horses lay in the baking sun as birds pecked at their eyes. Some of the animals were still alive but too sick or old to move—they had been left there to die in agony. | | Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities vowed to make meaningful improvements following PETA's first exposé, including replacing the long-suffering animals with electric carts—but this latest investigation from PETA Asia shows that those promises remain largely unkept. The authorities have failed, but PETA has urgently called on travel companies to stop promoting sites that exploit vulnerable animals, and many have listened. We must keep the pressure on both the Egyptian government and every company that still supports this abuse until it ends—the animals can't wait any longer. They're screaming for our help, and they need us now. Thank you for helping camels, horses, and all animals. | | Kind regards, 
Ingrid Newkirk
President | | |
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