The last pig of Kabul

[Kapa]

Life goes from bad to worse for Kabul’s only pig

* Peter Walker
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 May 2009 15.16 BST

It was lonely enough anyway, being the only pig in one of the world’s most devoutly Muslim countries. And that was before swine flu.

The white pig, a resident of Kabul Zoo, and believed to be the only such animal in a country where pork and pig-related products are illegal for religious reasons, has been placed in quarantine over fears it could spread the virus.

The animal, the sole survivor of a pair of pigs donated by China in 2002, normally grazes alongside deer and goats at the rundown zoo. But at the weekend it was removed and put in solitary confinement after visitors became alarmed.

“For now the pig is under quarantine. We built it a room because of swine influenza,” Aziz Gul Saqib, the director of the zoo, told Reuters. “We’ve done this because people are worried about getting the flu.”

While there is speculation that the new strain of the H1N1 virus could have originated on industrial pig farms before spreading to humans, there would appear to be little risk from a solitary pig, particularly in a country with no direct flight connections with Mexico, where the majority of the 1,000 or so worldwide swine flu cases have been identified so far.

Saqib conceded that there was no real public health argument for locking the pig away: “We understand that, but most people don’t have enough knowledge. When they see the pig in the cage they get worried and think that they could get ill.”

The pig arrived as part of a consignment of animals despatched by China to restock a zoo that had become a symbol of Afghanistan’s descent into chaos during the country’s civil war and the rule of the Taliban.

Rebel fighters ate the zoo’s deer and rabbits and shot dead its elephant. One militant climbed into the pen of the resident lion, Marjan, and was promptly killed and eaten. The man’s brother responded by throwing a grenade into the enclosure, leaving Marjan blind and lame.

China’s planeload of animals included a pair of lions to replace Marjan, who died in early 2002.

Lonely though Kabul zoo’s pig might be, it has actually escaped lightly by the standards of its peers in some other countries. At the weekend health officials in Baghdad said three wild boars at the city’s zoo had been destroyed because of fears about flu. Egypt, meanwhile, has ordered the slaughter of the estimated 250,000 pigs inside the country, eaten by the country’s Christian minority, even though the World Health Organisation stresses that the virus cannot be passed on through properly cooked meat.

[ROB]

I saw this in the paper. Poor piggie.

[Author]

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