Dog food poisoning allegations cause panic in 6 October

CAIRO – 4 June 2017: A State of panic has controlled over the residents of 6 October city due to finding a large amount of poisoned food left for dogs in the streets.

Some of Hay el-Ashgar neighborhood residents filed formal complaints to the police stations expressing their concerns that this food, that was found recently all over the streets would harm their children.

The residents argued the security forces to start an investigation, to maintain the crises before anyone gets hurt.

Meanwhile, a state of rage has spread among social media users, as one of El-Sheikh Zayed City, residents, near 6 October, was poisoned as she was trying to pick up all the poisoned food with her bare hands before any of hungry cats and dogs in the streets eat it.
According to Facebook post by Aida Awad, Friday June 2, all of the workers in the animal welfare groups and associations knew that there were campaigns launched by the General Organization for Veterinary Services to get rid of all the stray dogs, and that they were putting poisoned food in the streets.

“Many of us rushed in an attempt to save those animals before eating the poisoned food and die, but Sanaa was the first to arrive and she tried to gather all of the food from the streets with her bare hands, but after awhile the poisoning symptoms appeared on her skin and her health started to deteriorate,” Aida Awad stated in her post.

She added that Sanaa suffered after being taken to the hospital due to the side effects of the “Strychnine” poison used by the Veterinary Services General Organization to kill dogs.

She added that Strychnine poison is internationally prohibited; however it is still used by the Organization that follows the Agriculture Ministry because of its law cost.

The post was shared by Parliamentarian, Mona Mounier, as other accounts shared videos for her with Sanaa in the hospital trying to show her support.



This, however, was not the first campaign launched by the government to get rid of the stray animals. On March 2017, the directorate of veterinary medicine in Qalyubia governorate started a similar campaign to kill the dogs due to allegations of attacking people, according to Albawabh news.

And by February 2017, Cairo University also killed many dogs inside its compass using the same “Strychnine” poison, which caused another state of rage among social media users and animal welfare workers according to Masrawy, February 10.