Maria Daines
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7/15/2007 9:35:20 AM
Letter from Dr. Roba, Amsale Gessesse Memorial Foundation, Ethiopa stray dogs
Dear all,
I am a physician who lives in Houston, Texas. I am a US citizen but originally from Ethiopia.
In November of 2006 I co-founded an organization dedicated to the memory of my mother who I lost when I was at a tender age of 5 .
Maybe because of the loss of my mother at such a tender age made me more sensitive to the suffering of others both human and nonhuman animals, which has lead me to co-create this organization dedicated to helping all sentient beings.
In April of 2007 I went back to Ethiopia to find out about the wildlife situation in my native country, while there I was confronted with an overwhelming crisis namely the huge numbers of homeless dogs who are, among other nonhuman animals, the most mistreated, abused, neglected sentient beings in Ethiopia. Their suffering so bothered me, a day does not go by that I don't think of them. I saw so many hungry sick, neglected dogs it was stupefying .
I have videos of mother dogs in the middle of busy streets in the middle of the day so dehydrated their skin could be raised like a tent, trying to breast feed 10 baby puppies at a time. I have videos of dogs being systematically poisoned by strychnine, continuously convulsing and foaming at the mouth until their rib cages stops moving and they stop breathing. Because of what I have seen I have decided to mount a campaign to bring awareness to the problem in Ethiopia. I know the suffering in other countries are similar but unlike Ethiopia, in India for example, there are at least over 10 great animal protection organizations. In Ethiopia the awareness to the plight of nonhuman animals especially domestic animals and farm animals is nonexistent. There is one organization that I am supporting mostly from my own pocket called the Homeless Animal Protection Society. The only one I know in Ethiopia that deals with dogs among other nonhuman animals. They are under funded, understaffed and in their current situation they will not be able to bring relief to the suffering of a fraction of the 750,000 dogs found in the capital city of Addis Ababa alone.
We recently learned about a cave in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where live dogs are thrown into, to die of starvation. Over 20 dogs have been thrown into this dungeon of hell for the last 20 to 30 years, by some estimates. With no food, no water these poor souls would die a slow excruciating death. On being alerted of the situation our sister organization in Ethiopia Homeless Animal Protection Society (HAPS) President went to investigate and sure enough around June 25 2007 there were 4 live dogs in the cave. We immediately mobilized into action and rescued them within a few days. We petitioned the government to close the cave which has been around since the Italians built it in the 1930's, to which they agreed. Maria Daines a British Musician has written a song for the Ethiopian dogs to help us raise funds. If you would like to view video clips of the rescue and the whole story please go to -
News, Gido cave rescue
The need for education and the need to create facilities to take care of the thousands and thousands of suffering dogs is needed desperately.
What my organization would like to do is create a state of the art spay/neuter clinic/hospital with 6 surgery rooms, an educational center, a center for community outreach and teaching center, a temporary shelter that can accomodate 50 to 60 dogs with a holding area for at least 10 to 20 dogs. We want it to be the best available in Africa so that we can have people from other African co
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