Spanish authorities are about to start slaughtering hundreds of calves that have spent months crossing the Mediterranean, a lawyer for the cattle loaders said.
The 864 cattle to be slaughtered are aboard the Karim Allah, which is moored in the Spanish port of Cartagena. It is one of two ships that left Spain in mid-December to deliver live loads of young bulls. The second ship, Elbeik, loaded almost 1,800 cattle from Tarragona.
It seems that the Elbeik, which now transports more than 1,700 cattle, is returning to Spain.
Both shipments had problems when several countries denied them entry, including Turkey and Libya, for fear that the animals would have a disease called bluetongue, which causes lameness and bleeding among livestock but does not affect humans.
The disease regulations described by Spanish officials mean that cattle cannot re-enter the EU after trying to enter Libya. The slaughter order issued under the direction of Karim Allah, seen by The Guardian, states that Libya: “It has banned the export of animals to the EU due to the existence, among other epizootic diseases of great impact on the livestock, mouth disease in this state “.
“Spanish authorities have indicated that they will begin killing the cattle on Tuesday,” said Miquel Masramón, a lawyer representing Talia Shipping Line. Karim Allah is owned by Khalifeh Livestock Trading and is managed by Talia Shipping Line, both based in Lebanon, while the livestock is owned by a third party.
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In a statement on Saturday, the Ministry of Agriculture indicated that if Karim Allah did not begin to “isolate and slaughter the animals in accordance with the applicable regulations,” the ministry would do so.
A ministry source said Sunday the shipper had been informed he had until Monday noon to begin the killing. The ministry said: “It is up to the owner of the boat to first isolate and sacrifice the animals. It has until early tomorrow morning [Monday] to communicate its decision to the administration ”.
Both Talia Shipping Line director Majed Eid and Masramón said they would fight the decision. Their goal, they say, is to allow the cattle to be cured and then find a new buyer, once the results of the blue tongue blood tests were done last week.
A report by Spanish veterinarians who boarded the Karim Allah last week said the captain informed them of 22 deaths at sea. No other nine cattle were counted. The report said 20 of the animals that died were chopped up and thrown overboard during the voyage, citing information provided by the captain.
The report concluded that the animals had suffered the long journey and were generally in a poor state. Some were ill-suited and unsuitable for transport outside the EU or were fit to be allowed to enter Europe. Euthanasia would be best for your health and well-being, he concluded.
The report did not indicate whether the cattle had bluetongue, but other skin, eye and leg conditions were observed, such as alopecia, flaking, crusting and joint inflammation compatible with septic arthritis.
On Sunday, Masramón said he was trying to get a new veterinary report and that he expected a veterinarian to board the ship and “inspect the animals and respond to the veterinary report from the Spanish authorities. The problem right now is getting the [vet] official approval to enter port “.
Second ship to return to Spain
On Saturday, the monitoring website, Marine Traffic, showed Elbeik his return to Spain, bound for Cartagena.
The ship’s return to Spain was confirmed on Sunday in an email from the Cypriot government’s chief veterinarian, Christodoulos Charalambous Pipis, who has been overseeing the Elbeik. Last week he spent several days anchored on the north coast of Cyprus, outside the port of Famagusta.
“Our information is that the captain of the ship declared that the ship would return to Spain and today I was told that it would arrive in Spain very soon,” he said. “My Spanish counterpart has already informed me from the first moment that we obtained this information.”
Late last week, a source told the Guardian that of the approximately 1,770 loaded animals, about 35 could have died and the rest were in good condition. “They are limousines and charolais crossed [bulls], between six and 12 months, “the source said.
Representatives of Karim Allah and Elbeik have blamed Spanish agriculture ministry officials for their situation, accusing them of an error in animal health certification that led port officials to deny entry to the vessels.
The source said he was “100% sure” that the ship’s cattle had no blue tongue. “There was an error in the Spanish animal health documentation. That’s how it all started. They wrote Aragon [as the cattle’s origin]. Aragon has not been free of blue tongue for the last 24 months. “
The animals, he said, are not from Aragon, but from Zaragoza and Teruel, which are “150 km from the focus [of the bluetongue areas]”, And met the requirement of having come from a blue-tongue-free zone.
The Spanish Ministry of Agriculture had previously told The Guardian that the situation of the vessels “had nothing to do with the actions of the Spanish administration” and that the livestock came from blue-free areas.
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