Cape Town stench traced to cattle cargo ship in harbour

‘The faeces that the cattle were standing in, is already up to the top of their hooves in some pens’

AN OVERWHELMINGLY foul smell enveloping Cape Town has been traced to a cargo ship carrying 19,000 cattle in “awful conditions”.

The South African tourist hub woke up to the thick smell of manure and animal waste on Monday morning as it spread across much of the city centre.

Locals at first suspected the source of the odour was the sewerage system or a fish factory.

Health officials dispatched to find the source traced the stench to the 620ft livestock carrier the Al Kuwait, which had docked the previous evening after sailing for more than two weeks from Brazil.

The vessel, which is heading onward to Iraq, was boarded by health inspectors and a vet according to the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The group said the smell was caused by a build up of faeces and ammonia. Three animals were found dead and another five had to be put down.

“The stench on board is unimaginable, yet the animals face this every single day,” the group said.

Zahid Badroodien, the city official in charge of water and sanitation, confirmed that the source of the “sewage smell blanketing parts of the city” was the cattle ship.

The City of Cape Town condemned “the horrific conditions which have been uncovered aboard the Al Kuwait ship,” it said in a statement.

The NSPCA, which campaigns against the live transport of animals, dubbed the vessel a “Kuwaiti death ship”.

Grace le Grange, a senior inspector who had boarded the vessel, told the Reuters news agency: “The faeces that the cattle were standing in, is already basically up to the top of their hooves in some pens.”

“In general the cattle themselves were not in a physically bad condition in terms of weight-wise, but our concern is what happens when they get back onto the ocean,” she said.

Animal welfare officials said they had been unable to wash the animals, or muck out their containers into the harbour, because of the risk of contaminating the water.

The ship was expected to set sail later yesterday after loading more animal feed.