Starving cows saved
A STRANGE saga attracted international attention this week as the owners a cargo ship loaded with thousands of cows called the Easy Horse Care Rescue Centre in Rojales asking for help.
A woman representing the Talia Shipping Company told the centre’s co-founder, Sue Weeding on Saturday that their boat was being denied entry to Cartagena port, where it urgently needed to pick up feed to prevent the livestock from starving.
She said they were transporting 3,800 young cows from Brazil to Turkey but were not being allowed to dock because of a legal problem.
However she said this would take several days to resolve and their food supplies on board were due to run out on Monday.
Sue could not bear the thought of so many animals needlessly starving so started a petition on the website change.org, calling on the authorities to let the boat dock so the animals could be fed.
The Cartagena port authority told CBNews that the boat had applied for permission to dock on September 23 but withdrew this and no further application was on record.
Javier Sánchez, the director of the Maritime Agency Blázquez, which was handling the shipping company’s applications to dock, told Costa Blanca News that a Murcia court had ordered the boat to be embargoed if it docks.
Legally this would mean the cargo would be impounded as well, which is actually worth more than the boat itself, and looking after 3,800 cattle until the court case is resolved would pose a serious problem for the port.
Mr Sánchez alleged that the shipping company was not telling the whole story and was using the plight of the animals to pressure the authorities.
Mr Ahmed Ramzi Hassan Khalifah of the Talia Shipping and the Khalifeh Livestock Trading companies, assured Mrs Weeding that he did not mind if the boat was embargoed, as long as they could feed to the cattle.
He argued that they would not risk their boat being embargoed if the food situation were not critical, otherwise they could simply carry straight on to Turkey.
He said a fuel company was claiming money from them that was actually owned by the previous owners of the Julia, but insisted they could prove they were not responsible and supplied paperwork to support their case..
By Tuesday the situation had escalated, the food on board had run out, the story had appeared on Sky News and the petition had garnered almost 4,000 signatures.
Finally on Wednesday the shipping company advised that they had managed to dock at Carboneras in Almería and transported the feed there from Cartagena and then on board.
The animals had been saved, for now, but for Mrs Weeding the