Heartrending photos show filth and agony of China’s dog meat festival

Traders have gathered for China’s annual dog meat festival celebrating the summer solstice, where an estimated 10,000 dogs will be slaughtered.

Despite international condemnation, the event will go ahead tomorrow and pictures from Yulin marketplace are already heartbreaking.

The ‘festival’, held every June 21, sees truckloads of dogs as well as cats caged in squalid conditions before they are clubbed to death and sold for meat. Many of the animals are stolen pets, still wearing their collars.

It is said to be ‘tradition’ – but there is a growing swell of opposition within China itself as more and more people come to consider dogs as friends and companions, rather than livestock. Yu Hongmei, director of the VShine Animal Protection Association, said China needs to follow the example of the vast majority of developed nations that have banned eating dog and cat.

‘China needs to progress with the times,’ Yu said. ‘Preventing cruelty to animals is the sign of a mature, civilized society.’ But despite the practice labelled an ’embarrassment’ that fuels extreme cruelty as well as unhygienic food handling, Yulin festival is still going ahead.

Here are some of the photographs as vendors arrive.

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