The sight of thick, dark plumes rising into the sky like a funeral pyre signaled the exact location this reporter was heading to: the Karu abattoir in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where a grimy and suffocating stench of blood, intertwined with animal dung, hung heavy.
Amidst this nauseating cloak that is impossible to ignore, the abattoir was stuffed with workers, toiling with machetes and knives in blood and dung.
At 8am on a Thursday in January, slaughtering and butchering activities had begun when this reporter visited Karu. Fresh cow dung and blood were littered on the slaughter floor, and a butcher, dressed in an orange-colored uniform, trampled his dirty rain-boot on the meat as he consistently used his machete to work on it.
After witnessing at least six cows slaughtered, and despite sighting two vets stationed at the abattoir, no postmortem inspection was observed. Soon after the slaughter, the cows were fully dismembered and parts removed from the slaughter floor without inspection.
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This action is contrary to the globally recognised operational norms for best practices in meat inspection as established by the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Read more: https://dailytrust.com/gory-tales-from-fct-abattoirs/
