「魂を売った…」困窮でペット手放す人続出　レバノン

【ベイルートＡＦＰ＝時事】レバノンの首都ベイルート在住のイブラヒム・ディカさん（２６）は経済危機で失業し、銀行から受けた融資を返済するために、子犬の頃から育ててきた雌のベルジアン・シェパード「レクシー」を売りに出さなければいけなくなった。（写真は保護された犬。レバノンの首都ベイルート南方の村にある動物保護施設「ウーフ・アンド・ワグス」にて）
　「車や携帯電話を売ったんじゃない。魂を売ったんだ。自分の一部を売ってしまった」
　レバノンでは過去数十年で最悪の経済危機によって、多くの人が失業もしくは大幅な収入減に直面している。
　動物愛護運動家らによると、ペットの餌の入手や新たな飼い主探しで支援を求める人が増えている。ペットを売ったり、最悪の場合、捨てたりする飼い主も増加しているという。
　父親を病気で亡くしているディカさんは昨年、雇われていた衣料品店が閉店し失業。母親と兄弟を経済的に支えるのが苦しくなった。銀行からの督促が始まると、レクシーを売るしかなくなった。
　レクシーを売ってから数日後、ディカさんが車で様子を見に行くと、レクシーは家に帰れると思ったようだった。「私の車に真っすぐ飛び込んできた」とディカさん。「私を見るレクシーのあの目に、心が痛んだ」
　人口の半数以上が貧困状態で生活している今、多くのレバノン人は非政府組織の支援に生活を頼らざるを得ない。ペットにあげる餌もだ。
　レバノン南部で活動する動物保護団体「ウーフ・アンド・ワグス」のシェルターで、ボランティアのガーダ・ハティブさん（３２）は雌の犬を見守っていた。犬は薄汚れた白い布にくるまれてハティブさんの隣に横たわり、弱々しく呼吸していた。近所のごみ捨て場から救出したのだという。
　ペットの飼育放棄は増加していると、ハティブさんは言う。「もはや誰も犬に餌をやる余裕がない」
　「ペットを手放す人たちは、ここに来ると『自分の子どもが最優先だ』と言う」
　ウーフ・アンド・ワグスの創設者ジョー・オクジャンさん（２８）は、さらに多くの寄付を切実に必要としていると訴えた。施設では９０匹の犬の面倒をみているが、「１～２日、餌をやれないこともある」と話す。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/05/31-12:04）

Ibrahim al-Dika had raised his Belgian shepherd Lexi since she was a tiny pup, but then Lebanon's economic crisis made him jobless and he had to sell her to repay a bank loan.
It got to the point where I was no longer able to feed her, the bank was pressuring me, and I hit a wall, said the 26-year-old, devastated beside her empty kennel outside his Beirut home.
I didn't sell a car or a telephone. I sold a soul. I sold a part of me.
Can you afford to keep your pet? Animal activists say this is a dilemma a growing number of Lebanese owners are facing as their purchasing power nosedives.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese have lost their jobs or seen their income reduced to a pittance due to Lebanon's worst economic crisis in decades.
As many families struggle to stay afloat, activists say increasingly more pet owners are asking for help to feed or re-home their animals, selling them, or in the worst cases abandoning them.
Dika, after losing his father to illness, was laid off last year when his employer, a fashion retailer, closed shop, affecting his ability to support his mother and brother.
He had spent around a year caring for Lexi, and training her to sit, heel, give him the paw, and play dead.
But when the bank started calling, he saw no option other than to sell her.
He drove over a few days later to check in on her, and Lexi thought he had come to take her home.
She leapt straight into my car, he said. She broke my heart the way she looked at me.
- 'Children our priority' -
With more than half of Lebanon's population now living in poverty, many Lebanese have to depend on non-governmental organisations to get by -- even to feed their pets.
Amal Ramadan, 39, said she used to make donations to animal charity PAW. But these days it is her receiving free bags of food from them for her pit bull and bichon, Nelly and Fluffy.
Her monthly salary working in car rental, once equivalent to $1,000, is now worth just $120 because of the Lebanese currency's sharp devaluation.
I don't have enough income to feed my pets, said the widowed mother of two, who has taken on extra work to make ends meet.
Ramadan said she would rather starve than give up Nelly and Fluffy.
But as the price of imported pet food, meat and veterinary care soars, activists said some other animals have not been so lucky.
At the Woof N' Wags dog shelter in southern Lebanon, volunteer Ghada al-Khateeb watched a female dog lying on her side, breathing weakly under a grubby white coat, after she was rescued from the local trash dump.
She said pet abandonments were on the rise.
Nobody can afford to feed their dogs anymore, said the 32-year-old hairdresser and divorced mother of twins.
When they come to hand them over, they tell us: 'our children are our priority'.
- 'A day or two without food' -
The shelter's founder, 28-year-old Joe Okdjian, said he was in desperate need of more donations.
Sometimes they go a day or two without food, he said of the 90 dogs already in his care.
As Lebanon's economy crumbles, people's fates are mirrored in those of their pets.
In the capital, rescuer Soraya Mouawad said two or three people a week were asking her to re-home their animal.
They say they are emigrating, moving into a smaller home, or can no longer look after them for personal reasons, said the founder of Animals Pride and Freedom.
Many young professionals have fled Lebanon since 2019, especially after a massive explosion in Beirut last summer killed more than 200 people and ravaged large parts of the city.
Dedicated activists are working to ensure dozens of pets can also emigrate.
In one room at the Animals Lebanon shelter in Beirut, two cats lay in their beds.
One of them, Hips, was hit by a car in February and is paralysed below the waist. The other, Edward, was dumped in a box in the street in November and appears to suffer from an allergy.
Soon, the charity said, Hips and Edward are set to travel to a new life in the United States.