Karachi (AFP)

They were stored in miserable conditions and were not fed due to the confinement of cities. In Pakistan, hundreds of kittens, puppies and other rabbits have become indirect victims of the new coronavirus.

Two weeks after the Empress market in Karachi (South) closed, a labyrinth with dark and damp corners, Ayesha Chundrigar could still hear their cries from outside this colonial building dating from the 19th century .

Nearly a thousand pets had been abandoned there. "When we entered, around 70% of them were dead. Their bodies were lying on the ground," said the founder of an animal rights NGO. "It was horrible."

Two or three of the cats were locked in small bird cages, without light or ventilation, let alone water or food. The surviving animals sat among the dead, trembling.

In Lahore (East), the second Pakistani megalopolis, with 12 million inhabitants, the corpses of dogs were found in a sewer near Tollington Market, the hub of the pet business.

Kiran Maheen was able to save around twenty of them after convincing the authorities to let him enter this other building built in the time of the British. But she arrived too late.

"When the police opened the rolling shutters, a lot of animals had already died inside," many of them by asphyxiation, recalls Kiran Maheen, who also created an association for the defense of animals.

Police say they have offered traders to release the animals to safe places to feed them. Some then threw them into a pipeline, where they drowned.

- Cruelty -

Animal rights are far from a priority in Pakistan, where the most recent law on cruelty against them dates back to 1890.

Every year, the authorities in Karachi carry out large-scale poisoning campaigns for hundreds of stray dogs. Everywhere, zoos are in a deplorable state.

Hundreds of exotic animals have also been imported or bred locally in recent years. So that rich Karachites can parade on social networks with lions in their luxury SUVs.

In such a context, the fate of pets is a battle lost in advance. Especially since the Covid-19 killed 54 and nearly 3,900 sick in Pakistan, the confinement plunged millions of daily workers into destitution.

While charitable gestures for the poorest are very common in this Muslim society, far fewer are those who help quadrupeds.

Khurram Khan feeds a dozen cats in his neighborhood every day. "They feel pain and misery like us," observes this thirty-something living in a middle-class neighborhood.

But animal activists do not give up hope. Ayesha Chundrigar won a small victory by convincing the Karachi authorities to allow her team to enter animal stores two hours a day to deal with them.

Kiran Maheen, for her part, is already thinking about the future: "We are trying to use containment to pressure and obtain the complete closure of this place."

© 2020 AFP