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Horses stanre as Eglpt's tourist tradecollapses

Sora H ashash, Corlro Published : 22 January 2012

Marte Kjoell with a malnourished horse rescued from stables near the pyramids

Along a dusty path in Nazlet el-Samman, a village at the foot of Egrpt's pyramids, a group ofemaciated horses stood huddled together last week, their ribcages protruding. Awhite mare, clearlyin pain, could barely walk.

Stable hands who used to make a good living offering horseback rides to tourists are struggling tofeed their families after the violent street clashes of Egrpt's revolution drove visitors away. Some canno Ionger afford to care for their horses, and leave them abandoned, sick and malnourished.

A year after mass protests drove President Hosni Mubarak from power, the euphoria that swept thecountry has been replaced by concern for the future. "\,Ve're desperate," said Essam, a groom at theNasser Breash stables. "Many, manyhorses have died. I can't afford to feed myfamily. Who am Ioninc tn faar:l? ltrL, alrilr]oon nr mri ]rnrcac?"

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Horses starve as Egypt's tourist trade collapses I The Sunday Times http:i/www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/world news/Africa/articl...

The crowds and tour buses have disappeared. "Before the revolution we used to have maybe 2,oooor 3,ooo visitors a day; westerners, Arabs, holidaymakers from the Far East. You could barely walkalong here there were so manypeople," said Essam, gesturingtowards an emptystreet.

Beth Sartain, 40, a veterinary nurse from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales who has lived in Erypt for fiveyears, has been helping to rescue horses since the revolution began.

"It was starting to improve, but the latest round of violence has brought tourism back down," shesaid, referring to the deaths of 45 protesters during clashes with the army last November. "It's notjust the stable owners who are affected. The farriers, feed merchants, stable boys - all of them relyon tourists to make a living." A nearby stables has helped rescue 5o abandoned horses.

Sartain has been working with two other expatriate horse-lovers, Nareida Tczat from Australia, andMarte Kjoell from Norway, to raise funds to care for horses whose owners can no longer look afterthem. Their Facebook campaign named after the first horse they rescued, Prince Fluffy Kareem, hasenabled them to adopt six horses.

"Some of the horses couldn't stand up when we received them,' Tczrt said. 'They were just skin andbone."

[.ast month the Brooke Hospital for Animals, an equine charity founded to care for abandoned warhorses after the first world war, relaunched its emergency appeal after it found a large number ofmalnourished and dehydrated pyramid horses. It has arranged for high nutrient feed to be deliveredweekly.

Starving horses are just one of the problems that have beset post-revolutionary Egypt. Iast week,Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, minister of tourism, said visitor numbers had fallen by a third. Tourismrevenue, a vital source of income, has plunged by €2.4 billion.

Eg;rpt's wider economy has also faltered. Growth has fallenfrom5o/o in zoro to less than z%. Lastweek, the interim government requested a $3.2 billion (€z billion) loan from the InternationalMonetary Fund.

Compounding the economic woes is a crisis of leadership. Islamist parties were the victors of thesix-week parliamentary elections; final results released yesterday confirmed the Muslim Brotherhoodwon 4flo of the seats, with al-Nour, a hardline Salafist party, gaining z4%.Yetnobody has emerged asa convincing candidate forthe presidency.

The younger, more liberal generation, largely responsible for the protests that toppled Mubarak, findthemselves trapped between a wave of hardline Islamist politicians and an authoritarian militarycouncilwith echoes of the Mubarak era.

There is a sense of anticipation ahead of Wednesday's anniversary of the uprislng. The military hasdeclared the day a national holiday and is planning lavish celebrations. Yet the military council'scritics are calling for further demonstrations to demand an immediate transfer to civilian rule.Nobody seems certain whether to prepare for a protest or a party.

At Nazlet el-Samman, the stable hands see little reasonto celebrate. About 2oo horses are estimatedto have died since the revolution. On a stretch of wasteland littered with rubbish, white bones pokefrom beneath the debris - the skeletons of horses. Many starved to death.

Tcz,at said: "Their whole lives were dependent on tourists coming in. Nowthey're literally dyng ofhunger."

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