CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian veterinary authorities pressed on with a nationwide programme to slaughter the country's entire pig population on Monday, a day after clashes erupted with protesting pig farmers.
Police were deployed in force around the Cairo slum district of Manshiyet Nasr where hundreds of residents, mostly Coptic Christian rubbish recyclers known as zebaleen, on Sunday fought running battles with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
"The culling has continued today in Manshiyet Nasr, three trucks have already taken pigs to be culled," Ishak Mikhail, who heads the Muqattam Rubbish Collectors Association, told AFP. Each truck took around 70 pigs, he said.
"The zebaleen will comply with the state's decision, the proof is that pigs have been taken today," he said.
But lingering mistrust has kept some farmers from handing over their herds, said a Coptic priest at the church in the district.
"People are scared because this is an essential thing for them. Some were born into this profession (pig rearing)," said Father Bola Shawky.
"There is mistrust," he added, saying the rubbish collectors often complain of being harassed by police. "The government promised for years to solve the people's problems, but the people still have them."
Egypt began the slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs in earnest on Saturday, despite the World Health Organisation saying there was no evidence the animals were transmitting swine flu to humans.
The authorities are calling the slaughter a general health measure. No cases of swine flu, or influenza A(H1N1), have been reported in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world.
Egypt's pigs mostly belong to and are eaten by members of Egypt's Coptic minority and are reared by rubbish collectors in Cairo's shanty towns. Islam bans the consumption of pork for the country's majority Muslims.
The rubbish collectors, who used the pigs to dispose of organic waste and sell off some animals from their herds once a year, say the cull will affect their business and wipe out a crucial source of income.
"My pigs never made anyone sick, I don't understand this decision," said pig rearer Salah Atteya Khalil, a father of five.
"What am I going to do if I don't get compensation, how will I raise my children... will they have to go stealing in the street?"
Mikhail said he was meeting government officials to discuss what new land would be allocated for future pig farms, away from human-populated areas.
The authorities have said pig farming will return within two years, using imported pigs that will not be raised on garbage.
He said the Cairo governor had agreed to pay 500 pounds (90 dollars) for each adult pig and 50 pounds for each piglet, provided they were slaughtered but not butchered. The owners of butchered pigs would only receive the price of the meat as compensation.
"But now the market is flooded with pork and the wholesalers are paying only two pounds (35 US cents) per kilo instead of six," Mikhail complained.
The authorities have said it will take six months to complete the slaughter and announced plans to import three machines to raise the culling capacity to 3,000 beasts a day.
Egypt has also been battling an outbreak of bird flu for three years.
Twenty-six people have died in Egypt from the H5N1 strain of bird flu since it was first identified in early 2006 and the country has seen an increase in cases over the past two months.
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