Egypt: pigs... slaughter continues

The campaign to eradicate the pigs continued Monday in Egypt, after violent clashes between police and farmers in a poor neighbourhood of Cairo.

•     While no cases of swine influenza have been reported in Egypt, the Egyptian government is the only one in the world to have declared a radical elimination of a herd of about 250,000 pigs.
  
      Monday, veterinary services, accompanied by police, have gone on farms located in the middle of neighborhoods inhabited by poor Copts, to capture the pigs and bring them to slaughterhouses.
  
      No incidents were reported in mid-day; especially in the area ‘zabbaline’ (rag) of Manchiyet Nasr, on the Moqattam hill overlooking Cairo, where clashes took place Sunday.
  
      These clashes with those of Khanka (25 km north of Cairo), made at least 12 injured among the police and eight among farmers, according to security services. The police deployed Monday remained significantly around the neighbourhood.
  
      The slaughter continued today, three trucks have already come to take some 250 pigs, said Mikhaïl Ishak, head of the association of collectors of garbage Moqattam.
  
      Several tens of thousands of pigs live among the midst of piles of garbage by some 35,000 zabbaline, mostly Christians, whose pig is the means of subsistence.
  
      “No other country, even Mexico, where the epidemic was declared, has decided to slaughter pigs, so why here? Asked Hani Sayed a pig breeder.
  
      For Father Boutros Rouchdi Said, spokesman for the Moqattam church, the key issue is that of compensation. “If they want to kill the pigs, they kill, but at least they compensate decent men,” he says.
  
      According to him, a farmer could negotiate up to 10 to 12 pounds (1.2 to 1.4 euros) per kg of pork meat, while the Government will propose a pound per kg.
  
      According to Mikhail, the governor of Cairo is now agreed to grant a compensation of 500 pounds (70 euros) for each pig and 50 pounds for piglets for slaughter.
  
      The government denies wanting to flatter the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood opposition, which was campaigning against pigs breeding. Islam, which considers pork unclean, is the religion of nine in ten Egyptians.
  
      The Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali, who has denied any human cases in Egypt, says that it is a measure of preventive public health, while bird flu is rampant in Egypt so endemic.
  
      The systematic slaughter of pigs in Egypt seems to an anti-Coptic smack, said Sunday, a famous Egyptian militant for animal rights, Amina Abaza.
  
      According to the analyst Amr Choubak, the religious dimension, with a pig-phobia ambient among Muslims, is not excluded, given the repeated attacks of the Muslim Brotherhood and the conservative regime.
  
      “But the usual government neglect,, and social reaction of dispossessed farmers are more important to emphasize on in this crisis, he said to the press.
  
      For him, “if the issue of public health is real, its management is lamentable lack of a consensus-building, respect for people and a serious plan to help them change activities.”
  
      
  Ennaharonline / AFP