We report here an article published by the Daily Mail Online on 8th February. Although dismayed by what is happening, we aren’t objectively able to intervene, since we already find difficult to manage all the reports we get from Italy.
We only wish to make two observations. The first one is that a horse doesn’t starve to death reduced to a skeleton in fifteen days. This means that, even before the protests started in Egypt, those horses were in evident distress. The second one is more general and doesn’t concern only Egypt, but all those countries where the horse is used for commercial activities, with scarce if any consideration of its individuality and its wellbeing. We are seeing another sad example of this in Ireland, where thousands of abandoned horses are starving to death. And unfortunately Italy is no better. On May 2010 IHP received and saved 21 horses who risked ending in the same way since their owner – a standard bred breeder – was no longer able to support them.
We need a cultural change leading us to consider against nature every “use” of the animals. If those horses are now there starving to death, it’s probably because the average tourist has always considered normal, along with visiting the Pyramids and swimming in the Red Sea, to rent a horse for a trip.


Article published by the Daily Mail Online:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354928/Egypt-protests-Horses-starve-death-tourism-troubled-region-dwindles.html

Innocent casualties of Egypt’s riots: Harrowing images of the horses starving to death as tourists stay away

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

By Daily Mail Reporter - 8th February 2011
These harrowing pictures show the sad plight of dozens of Egyptian horses that have starved to death.
The animals rely on food from tourists to survive but visitors to Egypt have dwindled since protests started 15 days ago .
Skeletal corpses are now scattered around dusty land in Nazlet Al-Saman, about 25 kilometres from Cairo where protests continued today.



Staved: A horse still tied to a tree after it collapsed dead on the dusty floor in Nazlet Al-Saman near Cairo which has suffered without tourism



No food: An Egyptian man looks on at the corpses of several horses that have starved to death since protests started

Flies and other scavengers feast on the dead horses that have perished since ant-government demonstrations started in Tahrir Square.
One horse collapsed on the floor with a rope that tethered it to a nearby tree still tied around its neck.
Other beasts that have survived the food shortage stand weakly in the heat as their bones poke through their coats.

But without scraps of food from sightseers or the money that their owners need to buy food they too are likely to suffer agonising deaths.
The horses are used to take tourists on sight-seeing trips around the region.
But many of the holidaymakers were evacuated shortly after violence started in the region. The industry has still not recovered while touristsstay away from the area.
It is estimated that the protests have cost the Egyptian economy some $310million a day or $3billion so far. Experts said that the Egyptian stock exchange is also likely to remain closed until Sunday and the Egyptian pound hit a six-year low.



Famine: The wrinkled skin of a dishevelled horse can be seen and in the distance scavengers have featsed on another equine’s skeleton



Tour: A six-year old Egyptian tour guide awaits customers on the deserted streets of Nazlet Al-Saman. Without money from tourism he cannot feed his horses



Deserted: An Egyptian tour guide awaits customers for camel journeys through the desert but without tourists he has no customers

The pictures emerged as demonstrators called for more people to take to the streets for a mass rally against the president.
It is feared that the demonstrations could become more violent after footage emerged on YouTube showing brutal fights between protesters and Mubarak officials.
Despite the clashes some normality has returned to Cairo, with lengthy queues forming at banks with severely restricted opening hours, mainly younger protesters have called for a push to remove Mubarak as the authorities tried to squeeze them out of central Cairo.
But the protesters camped out in tents on Tahrir Square have vowed to stay until Mubarak quits, and plan more mass demonstrations on Tuesday and Friday.
The Muslim Brotherhood also said on Monday that it could quit the talks process with the government if protesters’ demands were not met, including the immediate exit of Mubarak