Remained blocked for 15 days drift with very little food and in a restricted space: it is the sad destiny that touched on to Thousands of cattle and sheep, victims of yet another sea transport.
After one or more motor faults, in fact, the Express M ship – which had left Romania on a course towards Israel – remained at sea two weeks, more than triple the expected time, with serious repercussions for the animals on board: 2400 cattle and 460 sheepexposing them to conditions of suffering and deprivation and putting their own life at risk.
It is yet another proof of how farm animals can be transported for entire days between great suffering and fears. Exposed extreme hot and cold, hunger and thirst, lack of rest, they face travels that last entire weeks and then those who survive undergo cruel and unacceptable treatments.
As often happens, moreover, the ships used for those transport are old And badly. Also in this case, the Express M dates back to 1983 And his is not a beautiful story.
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As they tell by Lav, it was held in the port of Waterford, Ireland, due to multiple security problems, which led to the revocation of its approval certificate. It was then detained on at least four other occasions: in 2009 (Falmouth, United Kingdom), in 2018 (Tarragona, Spain), in 2020 (Sines, Portugal) and more recently in December 2024 (again in Sines, Portugal). In these stops, 25 deficiencies have been encountered, including problems relating to the construction of safety, navigation, and the prevention of pollution. In April 2018, the ship, which then operated with the name of Atlantic M, was retained in Tarragona (Spain) for five days after 4,000 lambs and 1,700 calves had already been loaded.
The open letter to the EU Commissioner
To put an end to all this, Lav together with other European organizations, wrote the well -being of the animals Olivér Várhelyi to the EU Commissioner for Health.
The draft regulation presented by the Commission is still too bland and inadequate to ensure adequate protection for animals. Transport by sea represent a certain cruelty and danger, they must be prohibited, as a passage of civilization and consistency with the green objectives of the European Union, which cannot be separated from greater protection of animals raised in all stages of their lives.
The review of the European rules for the protection of animals must be accompanied by a decisive change of direction in the operating methods of the agri -food system as a whole, which cannot and must not be based on the systematized suffering of hundreds of billions of animals raised, transported, and killed slaughtered every year.
Here the open letter.
