The emaciated lions have been suffering for weeks without food or medicine following a spike in food prices nationwide, and have lost almost two-thirds of their body weight.
AFP & CHRIS DYER: ‘New footage has emerged of emaciated lions living in horrific conditions at a zoo in Sudan where a lioness died this week. The video taken at the Al-Qureshi Park in Khartoum showed visitors looking at starving lions kept in rusty cages, while others roam around dirty enclosures. The bones of the big cats could be seen through their skin as they ambled around the nightmare animal park in an upstate district of the country’s capital. On Monday one of the five starving lions held in the zoo died as a campaign to save the remaining four animals gathered momentum. The lioness received intravenous fluids for several days but later died, according to Brigadier Essamelddine Hajjar, who is a manager at the park.
The emaciated lions have been suffering for weeks without food or medicine, following a spike in food prices nationwide due to a foreign currency shortage, and have lost almost two-thirds of their body weight… Park officials and medics said the lions’ conditions deteriorated over the past few weeks, with some losing almost two-thirds of their body weight. ‘Food is not always available, so often we buy it from our own money to feed them,’ Essamelddine Hajjar, a manager at Al-Qureshi park said… Locals concerned about the fate of the lions flocked to help recently, bringing food and medical items, despite the economic crisis gripping the country…
Activist Osman Salih posted images of the big cats on Saturday, writing in a Facebook post that ‘seeing these animals caged and be treated this way made my blood boil’. ‘I was shaken when I saw these lions at the park… their bones are protruding from the skin,’ wrote Salih on Facebook as he launched an online campaign under the slogan #SudanAnimalRescue. ‘I urge interested people and institutions to help them’… While many abroad have tried to donate via crowdfunding sites, Salih noted that US sanctions on Sudan have prevented the zoo from receiving funds through popular platforms, such as GoFundMe. There was no immediate response from GoFundMe’. SOURCE…
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