On the 6th of October we visited a slaughterhouse in Tamale, Ghana together with the local NGO WACPAW. The handling was extremely brutal. Animals were hit, tails were broken on purpose and necks were stretched backwards so the animals were forced to fall down.
Also the design of the slaughterhouse was a catastrophe. Animals were killed all together in one big room. Still living animals were walking over the freshly slaughtered. Many animals fell down because the floor was so slippery from blood, intestines and feces. Right at the entrance there was a big drain were almost all animals fell, got injured and were brutally pulled out. Also the knives that were used to slit the throat, were often too short and blunt which led to horrible neck- cuts and animals struggle for life for many minutes.
The sad thing is that many cattle hardly gave a response to the brutal treatment and chaos in the slaughterhouse. They were totally exhausted, immobilized from sheer fear and seemed to have lost all hope.
Eyes on Animals and WACPAW inspectors sketched a design to make the Ghana slaughterhouse less chaotic and therefore causing at least less suffering. We showed the managers our plan and gave advice on the spot. The good news is that the managers – with help of WACPAW – will work on this plan. Eyes on Animals will coordinate this project, so suffering is reduced as soon as possible.
