Activists: City officials trapping stray cats in Belarus basements, leaving them to die

A stray cat looks through a hole in an iron panel covering a basement window in the Belarusian capital Minsk, Feb. 4, 2013. / AP

MINSK, Belarus City authorities in the Belarusian capital of Minsk are carelessly trapping stray cats in locked basements, dooming them to starvation, animal activists say.

Elena Titova, leader of the animal rights group Protect Life, says the ex-Soviet nation has no long-term shelters to house stray animals. She estimated that about 9,000 strays have been killed in the Belarusian capital alone over the past three years.

"Killing the animals with impunity has become a government policy," Titova said Monday. "This barbarian policy can be described as `No animal, no problem.' They find it easier to kill them as they don't have to build shelters."

City authorities say they must isolate the basements of apartment buildings in line with Soviet-era health rules to prevent rodents from getting in.

"Cats and residents will scream for a while and then they will calm down," said Alexander Yubkov, a city worker who has welded iron covers on basement windows.

He said if workers did not secure basements "sanitary officials will come and order us to pay a fine."

Minsk resident Karolina Litvinova said authorities don't bother to check whether there are no animals left in a basement before shutting it.

"My heart aches to hear how the animals, whom they have walled up, are screaming day and night," said 72-year-old Antonina Gayenko, a retiree who was feeding some cats through small holes in the iron plates. "They have doomed them to death from thirst and hunger."

Some residents have drilled bigger holes in the iron plates to allow the cats to escape.

"We have saved five cats that have been walled up," said Litvinova, who has urged authorities to prosecute some city workers on charges of animal cruelty.

Under a practice that has been followed since Soviet times, stray animals in Belarus are placed in shelters for five days and then killed by injection owners don't show up.

[Transatlantique]

To allow something, anything living, to starve to death is absolute cruelty. These Russians are so lazy and backward as to do this to these animals. Some of them are still about 100 years behind the times. They should at least have euthanasia teams to inject them, remove them and then block the basements. Cats are wonderful creatures who help keep overpopulation of mice and birds in check. I don't see how these people can live with themselves. This goes for the Ukrainians who were poisoning the dogs as well. Barbaric and cruel they are. But many Americans can be just as bad. Shame on them.

[margroks]

Stop killing these poor animals! They are strays because humans allowed them to breed uncontrolled. And don't start with the killer cats nonsense. I love to watch birds as well but cats naturally catch birds and rodents. Humans trapping animals and allowing them to starve is NOT natural and it is cruel. Cats are not at all responsible for the decimation of bird populations that many biurders would have us believe. It's exaggerated. I'd choose warm and cuddly feline or dog, for that matter over a largely unaffectionate bird any day for that matter.

[cleric77]

If we can kill/murdere pre-born human beings via abortion, why not kill unwanted lower animals such as cats or dogs?????

[Transatlantique]

What makes you think cats and dogs are "lower animals"? They don't pollute the water with pesticides and chemicals from textile mills, they don't take more than they need to live, and they don't build bombs.

There are already too many people on the planet that are multiplying exponentially. Abortion is better than an unwanted person who will grow up to make more unwanted people. Sterilisation is the key to animal and human overpopulation. Humans will kill each other by depleting the earth's resources from overpopulation. Would you like for a non aborted fetus to grow up only to starve to death? I wouldn't. We all die sometime. But to die inhumanely is another thing.

I don't support abortion for myself, but I do believe that it is better to abort or euthanise than to watch it starve. The same goes for cats and dogs.

[Aussie_convict]

A foetus is not a human being but nice try Cleric.

[eroteme2]

There may be some about who are pleased that many birds that would otherwise have been killed now live, that many killer cats will no longer kill.

[Transatlantique]

You have that all wrong. Nature takes care of itself without the help of the over thinking humans who only care about costs. These cats do not deserve to die slowly and miserably because humans are too lazy and greedy. You missed the point entirely.

[DTSSER]

First, human beings kill more birds and other wildlife than do cats. We are the killer species.

Second, even if cats are a problem, starving them to death is something only a sadist would condone.