GIZA - A month ago, Karim Mohamed was comfortably able to feed his horse for the daily cost of 40 Egyptian pounds (US$ 6.7). Now, however, this amount of money is unreachable for him and the horse is dying of famine. “There was money in the past and I was able to feed the horse,” Mohamed, 24, told The Egyptian Gazette. “Now, money is making itself scarce, not only for me, but for all horse and camel owners in this area.” An 18-day uprising against the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak seems to have had disastrous effects on the ability of horse and camel owners in the Pyramids area to feed their animals. With hundreds of thousands of tourists turning tail after the revolt against Mubarak erupted on January 25, these horse and camel owners lost their income in ways that negatively influenced their ability to lead dignified lives and also tend for their animals. The animal owners in Nazlet el-Siman, an area adjacent to the Pyramids in Giza full of horse and camel barns, used to rent out their horses and camels for the tourists who went on guided tours to the Pyramids. But now, with no tourists visiting the area, these owners, some of them considered these animals their only wealth, face the toughest of their times. “There is a general state of carelessness in this area,” said Mona Khalil, an animal activist and the founder of the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals (ESMA), a local organisation working in the field of the protection of animals. “Apart from this, the economic crunch brought by the revolution-induced turbulence reduced the ability of the owners of these animals to give enough care to them,” she told this newspaper. Khalil and her colleagues in the society have launched a campaign to save the animals in Nazlet el-Siman. They said the security vacuum and the economic problems, caused by the demonstrations against Mubarak for 18 days, had harmed animals in Egypt in general. A few days ago, Khalil saw a donkey eating garbage on the street. Another time, she was infuriated to have learned that some of the owners of pet shops locked their animals for more than five days in the shops without food, because they were afraid to get out on the streets, while Egypt's security system disintegrated and thugs and criminals were everywhere. Egypt does not have laws for the protection of animals in general. Animal rights groups even say the Government lacks the necessary political will to protect the animals of the nation. This results in massive violations against animals in this populous country. But the violations Mohamed, the horse owner, commits against his horse are unintentional. He says he even finds it difficult to feed his daughter and wife in the absence of the normal influx of tourists in the Pyramids area. “Tourism is my only source of income,” he said. “The problem is that I cannot do another job.” There are thousands of animal owners in Nazlet el-Siman, ranging from ones who own tens of horses and camels and others who own one horse or camel and depend on renting it out for tourists to feed it and the family as well. Mohamed says he resorts to borrowing money to feed the horse. “But how long will I be able to borrow money?” he asks.
