30. March 2017

Bulgaria | Svilengrad | Cattle exports to Turkey

[Translate to English:] Parkplatz Svilengrad – hier stehen nur Tiertransporter in der prallen Sonne.

[Translate to English:] Tragende Färsen aus Deutschland auf einem Tiertransporter an der türkischen Grenze.

Every day between 20-30 animal consignments are passing Bulgaria on the way to Turkey, most of the animals need a 24 hours rest in a control post according to Reg. (EC)1/2005. The Bulgarian authorities suddenly closed the Control Post of Royal Haskovo. We have no information about the reasons behind. Presently, only the newly opened control post in Svilengrad is accepted for the 24 hours rest, but the stables have a capacity for only 8 trucks.  Teams of AWF/TSB and Eyes on Animals observed 20 trucks on the premises of the Svilengrad Control post, some unloaded, others with the animals on board. The animals inside the stables of the control post are crowded, they cannot lie down, some have less space than onboard the trucks and have difficulties to reach feed and water. Some transporters with animals loaded in Czech Republic had to wait 20 hours at the Svilengrad stables before being sent to Royal Haskovo stables to do an emergency- unloading of the animals.The conditions where the animlas are kept in the Control post of Svilengrad are not in line with the criteria of Council Regulation 1255/97. We received information from the operator of the control post, that they are about to increase the capacity of the stables and that conditions will improve, but we have no proof of this yet.

After crossing the border some animals have to travel up to 14 hours/1270 km to arrive to their final destination.