The once noble lion is now only skin and bones after being locked up and starving at the Taiz Zoo in Yemen during the ongoing terrible civil war.
Being locked up in a zoo to entertain people is already a misfortune, but this lion is even more miserable when the place where he is locked up is in a war zone in Yemen, where a terrible civil war broke out since October. 3/2015 and still going on until now.
The poor lion was left with only skin and bones, and there was no longer any shadow of the mighty lord of all species.
Day by day, he could only look far away through the iron door that was holding him captive.
Not only this lion, but also about 266 other animals, including monkeys, deer, horses, birds and reptiles, in the zoo are also suffering from the same situation. In which, 12 other lions and 6 leopards could not stand it, but died of hunger and thirst before volunteers could help.
Now every day a small group of volunteers make their way through a hail of bullets and gruesome lines of armored vehicles to the zoo to care for poor abandoned animals.
The cramped little cage was now filled with the blood and waste of an abandoned starving lion, a terrible habitat.
Just taking care of the lions and leopards costs £2200 (equivalent to 65.3 million VND) and the volunteers need a lot of funding from benefactors. Luckily for them, since February 2016, the fund has received nearly £50,000 (nearly VND 1.5 billion).
The zoo was located about 4.8km from the front line and although there was no bombardment or attack, the volunteers had to risk their lives to cross the front line to get there. There was even one person who died in this dangerous journey.
The biggest difficulty of the volunteers is keeping the cages clean for the animals, because when they have to live in a dirty environment, they are very susceptible to infections and diseases.
Bassam Al-Hakimi, a pre-war industrial engineering student, is risking his life every day to care for poor animals.
However, the immediate situation does not seem to be very positive, because within the next 4 weeks, their funds will be exhausted, while international non-profit organizations will not lend a hand. What they need most right now is a way to save these poor animals from the ruined area that used to be a zoo.
