An uproar is raised on social media in Egypt whenever it is announced that a number of slaughtered and skinless donkeys have been found, the last of which was a few days ago in Menoufia Governorate, north of Cairo. The most uproar was when hundreds of slaughtered donkeys were found in a desert area in Beni Suef Governorate years ago.

But the great excitement during the past days came through the statements of the Undersecretary of the Veterinary Division at the National Research Center, Dr. Ahmed Abdoun, most notably the local media, in which he said that the total number of donkeys in Egypt reached 3.2 million heads in 2014, but the number has shrunk dramatically to now only one million heads .

After the Egyptians were talking about some weak souls slaughtering donkeys and selling their meat to “kebab and kofta” shops, it became clear that there is another reason for slaughtering these animals, perhaps greater than meat, which is to obtain their skins.

Thus, the question has become a recurring question in the comments of the pioneers of social networking sites on this news: Where did those skins go?

And what do you use?

And how many of them were exported to China, whose skins are used to extract drugs to treat several diseases and delay aging?

Was it out of the legal doors?

What is the truth about what is reported about the use of donkey skins in confectionery factories as a source of gelatin, which is a cheap alternative to sugar?

Fantastic prices

Al Jazeera Net spoke to the veterinarian, Amin Shaaban, who started by saying with a smile: I assure the Egyptians who were frightened of the amount of slaughtered donkeys dumped in the desert and deserted places that the issue has nothing to do with selling donkey meat as beef. Most of the comments on the donkeys that were found slaughtered on the roads carried what He indicates that commentators believed that these donkeys were intended for distribution to butcher shops to sell to citizens, which is not true.

According to Shaaban, donkey meat has a darker smell and color than other meat, which repels most of those who smell it or sees it and makes him refrain from buying it as meat if it is offered by fraudulent butchers, and that is why they may resort to mixing it with other meat to make kofta, but the main story relates to a much larger and more profitable trade Related to the sale and export of donkey skins.

We have read - Shaaban says - that the global stock exchange in China has valued donkey skin at more than 470 US dollars, or about 7,500 Egyptian pounds, while the price of a whole donkey in Egypt ranges between two thousand and 2500 pounds.

Enormous medical benefits

In turn, Mohamed Abdullah Hussein, professor of health control of meat and meat products at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Zagazig University, points out that China uses donkey skins and gelatin extracted from them as a special source for the production of ejiao, the main compound in a drug that is mainly manufactured as a supplement to lost blood.

But the Chinese - Hussein adds to Al Jazeera Net - began using the drug as a treatment that prevents aging, infertility and abortion, as well as the side effects of chemotherapy, and sexual stimulants are made from it, and then the prices of this substance doubled to more than 40 or 50 times within a few years.

Hence, Chinese companies began to go to the markets of developing countries to import donkey skins at attractive prices that sometimes amounted to hundreds of dollars for one donkey skin, which created a state of obsession among many citizens for trading in donkey skins, he said.

Japan and donkey skins

For her part, Head of the Veterinary Research Division at the National Research Center, Dr. Mona Saeed, confirms that export to China, despite its large size, is not the only one responsible for slaughtering donkeys. There are many confectionery supplies factories that use leather in the production of gelatin, which is a cheap alternative to sugar that is used in the manufacture of sweets. , especially cakes and artificial cherries.

Mona adds to Al Jazeera Net that Japan has also entered the line of importing donkey skins, where it uses them in the cosmetics industry because the donkeys' skin fat is liquid oil, and a medicine is also extracted from it to treat facial and body wrinkles and the manufacture of condoms.

Rather, donkey skins are used in other very useful uses for humanity in the future, as researchers use them in the medical field, specifically in scientific research related to cancer, and how to treat it, according to the veterinarian.

More than one confectionery factory owner refused to comment on the idea of ​​using gelatin extracted from donkey skin in the manufacture of sweets, saying that they did not want to contribute to the spread of information promoted by the media and channels in order to attract views, they said.

sweets manufacturing تصنيع

For his part, the branch manager of one of the famous sweets shops, Ihab Amer, ruled out the validity of the information spread in this regard, stressing that he did not imagine the idea, wondering: Didn't a great media person come out years ago and talk about gelatin extracted from the skins of dead animals?

Amer continues in his dialogue with Al-Jazeera Net that all this talk is just conclusions that do not amount to confirmed information and do not provide a proven scientific fact, and we buy gelatin used in sweets ready and we do not feel anything abnormal in it.

He added that if we know that exporting donkey skins to China and others generates fantastic profits, why should traders sell it to local gelatin manufacturers?

Why did the prices of sweets not rise with the terrible rise in the prices of those skins?

According to a report published by Donkey Sanctuary in 2017, the number of donkeys slaughtered in China annually - mostly imported from developing countries - to obtain ejiao is 1.8 million donkeys out of the total number of donkeys in the world estimated at 44 million.