Animal welfare organizations ARCA and FOUR PAWS are still fighting for the well-being of the 220 sheep that were rescued from a sinking ship in Romania at the end of November. More than 14.000 sheep lost their lives.
The sheep were being transported on a boat, not suited to carry live animals, from Romania to Saudi Arabia. Short after leaving, the ship capsized and the sheep were left to die. ARCA and FOUR PAWS stepped in and tried to save the animals that were still alive.
They made long days, working tirelessly to search for survivors: “The knowledge that there are still conscious animals onboard drives us back into the partially flooded corridors.”
FOUR PAWS and ARCA rescued the sheep, hoping to give them a nice life after all this suffering. But they didn’t expect to come across so much resistance. In a Facebook post, ARCA pleas with the government of Romania to let them have the sheep and give them a good home.
“Besides the rescue, we made huge efforts daily so that the surviving animals would be truly safe, all the way. We found the perfect forever home for them, where they could live happily ever after. Afterwards, in order to be able to take them, we dealt with the buyer, the seller, the authorities with their smaller and their more important representatives. Dozens of times,” they say in the post.
They’ve done everything but are just waiting for the cooperation of the government of Romania. Even the ‘owner’ of the sheep agreed to give them away: “We even managed to have an understanding with the Arabian citizen who sold the sheep in the first place, on whose farm the sheep were also returned to and he agreed right from the start to give us the sheep, no questions asked. But we cannot seem to find any understanding with the Romanian state.”
In the time that has passed, 60 of the sheep that were rescued have died and 11 were killed. ARCA is trying everything to give the remaining sheep a forever home.
Live transport from Romania
Romania, a country of the European Union, keeps transporting live animals to the Middle-East and North-Africa. According to the Dutch political party Party for the Animals over 200 sheep left the port of Midia this year.
Even after the ship capsized in November and 14.000 sheep died, more boats have left the port with animals stuck on them.
