Our member league Animal Rescue Cambodia has actively contributed to the rescue of 61 dogs confiscated from a minivan by the Siem Reap Provincial Department of Agriculture last Sunday. It’s the FIRST EVER police intervention of such a kind after the recent dog meat trade ban in Siem Reap Province in June 2020.

The dogs, crammed tightly into six metal cages, were on their way to be slaughtered in Kampong Cham for their meat, when the vehicle was intercepted leaving Siem Reap town by the Provincial Department of Agriculture in collaboration with the Provincial Commissioner of Police. The driver was immediately arrested on the scene.

All dogs were then removed from the overcrowded cages and released into a small holding area.

The team of ‘Animal Rescue Cambodia’ together with the associations ‘Paw Patrol Cambodia’ and ‘Four Paws’ provided emergency feeding and medication for the 61 rescued dogs. A veterinary team is still on-site along with the Siem Reap Provincial Department of Agriculture to vaccinate and treat all dogs for their injuries. The confiscated dogs, most of them young, include both stray animals and stolen pets. Dogs showed signs of severe heat exhaustion and dehydration and they were extremely hungry.

Although Siem Reap has banned the slaughter and trading of dogs for meat as the first province in Cambodia in July 2020, it is still considered a key hot spot in the country’s dog meat trade for the large-scale sourcing and trafficking of dogs to supply the Eastern part of the country, most notably Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. According to a nationwide investigation carried by the organization Four Paws specialised minivans equipped with cages are used to regularly transport an estimated 3,750 live dogs per month out of Siem Reap to slaughterhouses in Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom and Skun, where dogs are drowned, stabbed, hanged or stripped of their fur and sold by wholesalers to the more than 100 dog meat restaurants in Phnom Penh. (source @Four Paws).

Congratulations to Siem Reap authorities, the team of Animal Rescue Cambodia and all the associations involved: these dogs are now safe from a certain death sentence!

If you want to help Animal Rescue Cambodia (https://www.ar-cambodia.com)