BEIRUT, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Fatina Abdallah, a 30-year-old resident of Lebanon's southeastern village of Khiam, expresses deep sadness and regret for leaving her dog behind during her hurried displacement to the southern city of Nabatieh following an Israeli airstrike that severely damaged her home.
"I searched everywhere for my dog, but unfortunately, I couldn't find it," she said tearfully.
According to Abdallah, hundreds of families in her village had to abandon their dogs due to the challenges of bringing them along to displacement shelters.
The conflict between the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel since October last year has forced many residents in southern Lebanon to flee their homes. Like Abdallah, many families had to leave their pets behind in open fields, exposing them to the threats of starvation, diseases, and other hazardous situations.
In early March, Lebanon's Ministry of Environment said that about 70,000 dogs have become strays in Lebanon due to the impact of conflicts in Syria and southern Lebanon and the lack of sufficient funding for municipalities to deal with the matter.
Recently, the plight of stray dogs in Lebanon's southern border regions has received increasing attention. Some people in southern Lebanon have volunteered to launch initiatives to rescue stray dogs.
Nizar Hatoum, a man in his 30s who acquired experience in dog care during his five-year service as a police dog trainer in the Lebanese army, established a shelter in the southeastern town of Mimas a month ago to provide care for dogs whose owners have been displaced from southern Lebanon due to conflicts with Israel.
"I initiated this step out of compassion for these pets and to protect citizens from any potential risks they may pose," Hatoum said.
"In our shelter center, we train dogs to preserve their loyalty to humans while ensuring they pose no threat to people," he explained, adding that these dogs are in dire need of food, medicine, and water as the soaring prices of these necessities have made it increasingly difficult to keep the dogs.
"This is a challenging and expensive task and requires the cooperation among many concerned parties, especially municipalities, animal welfare organizations, the Veterinarians Syndicate, the ministries of agriculture and environment, as well as donors," he said.
Another initiative has been spearheaded by Alaa Suleiman in the southern village of Kafr Kila since about a month ago. He has distributed food for stray dogs in southern Lebanon in cooperation with the veterinarian Yasser Chamoun, who covers the costs of the food.
"I drive my car through many villages that are subjected to Israeli bombings every day. We receive support from goodwill people. I distribute food to the dogs wherever they are," he said, adding his faces an arduous task to save them.
"Sometimes we fear being unable to reach border areas due to the presence of Israeli drones targeting vehicles and people," he added.
Soraya Moawad, who leads an animal welfare foundation, emphasized the urgent need to address the issue of stray dogs, as she believed many dogs may pose the risk of disease transmission as they are not vaccinated.
Veterinarian Hassan Hamdan expressed concern over the potential for stray dogs to contract dangerous diseases such as rabies, which has an incubation period of weeks and may take longer time for symptoms to manifest.
On February 29, Lebanese Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan called for a meeting to discuss ways to tackle the problem of stray dogs.
During the meeting with representatives from the health and environment ministries, the veterinarians' union, activists, and animal welfare associations, the participants reached a consensus on the necessity of reviving the national committee to control stray dogs, established by the ministry back in 2016. They proposed the introduction of new measures and formulating a roadmap to tackle this issue swiftly. ■
