To Sate China’s Demand, African Donkeys Are Stolen and Skinned<br />“All of us — the donkey owners, the veterinary professionals — are against the trade,<br />but the government is not taking a keen interest on this because it provides income to them.”<br />According to the most recent census in 2009, Kenya had some 1.8 million donkeys supporting an estimated 10 million people.<br />Mr. Chesebe explained that the slaughterhouse also limits its purchases of dried skins to those sold by Turkana people — because, he said, “everyone knows<br />that only Turkana eat donkeys” — and to fresh skins from sellers who claim their animals died on the way to the abattoir.<br />As demand increased, China’s donkey population — once the world’s largest — has fallen to fewer than six million from 11 million,<br />and by some estimates possibly to as few as three million.<br />NAIROBI, Kenya — “This is the spot,” said Morris Njeru, gazing down at a tangled patch of farmland<br />where he recently found the bloody corpses of David, Mukurino and Scratch — his last donkeys.<br />“Instead of having to sell cows and goats, Maasai pastoralists are selling donkeys to pay their children’s school fees.”<br />Goldox Donkey Slaughterhouse in Baringo County — the largest of Kenya’s abattoirs, claiming to process some 450 donkeys a day<br />— also attempts to spread good will by providing free water to neighbors, and by paying school fees for four local children.
