Nearly three tons of cats illegally smuggled into Vietnam from China have been destroyed by burial, not by being crushed with a rubbish van as reported by foreign media, a Vietnamese veterinary official has affirmed.
>> Thousands of live cats from China seized in Vietnam Do Phu Son, head of the Hanoi Veterinary Sub-Department, gave the confirmation to Tuoi Tre
(Youth) newspaper on Friday in response to reports by global media that the illicit animals had been “crushed to death beneath the wheels of a dumper truck” because of fears they might spread diseases.
Nguyen Thi Thu Dung, an executive from Hanoi-based Binh Minh Environment Company Limited, which destroyed the smuggled cats, also rejected the method of “grisly mass execution” reported by international media.
Dung said most of the cats died before they were buried in accordance with current regulations, witnessed by police.
“We have destroyed the cats in a proper process. All the cats were packed in bags and then were buried. The reports that we used trucks to run over the cats before burying them are incorrect. We didn’t do this,” Dung said.
Lieutenant Colonel Doan Xuan Hung, a police chief in Hanoi, also refuted the reports on the method through which the felines were killed.
“All the cats were buried at Kieu Ky dump site in Gia Lam District, and before the burial, about two-thirds of them had already died,” Hung confirmed.
“It is wrong to say the cats have been run over by a truck before burial,” he stressed.
The cats were seized on January 27 by the district police and an environmental police unit from the Ministry of Public Security from Hoang Van Hieu, a 31-year-old man hailing from the northern province of Quang Ninh.
That day the police caught Hieu carrying nearly three tons of cats in his truck from Quang Ninh to Hanoi to sell to restaurants.
Hieu failed to show police officers any animal quarantine certificate for the cats or any other documents to prove the origin of the felines.
He told police all the cats originated from China and that he had bought them in Quang Ninh’s Mong Cai Town on the border.
Police then gave an administrative penalty to Hieu and confiscated all the illicit cats to handle pursuant to applicable regulations.
All the cats have been destroyed to prevent a possible epidemic spreading from them, Hanoi police officers said on Friday, February 6.
The Daily Mail reported on February 4 that, “Thousands of cats rescued from the dinner table in Vietnam have been crushed to death beneath the wheels of a dumper truck in a grisly mass execution that has horrified animal lovers.”
The British tabloid is one of many news sites to carry such an incorrect story.
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Đăng ký: VietNam News
