Chicken Eradication in a Suspicious Manner

In the territory of the Ancient Town of Lower Tana and particularly in the neighboring Settlement of (Makhoara) and that’s on Wednesday 4 January, 2006, 80,000 chickens were eradicated.

In an interview with one of ! the workers who were employed to carry out this mission, he mentioned that he used to being employed by a settler to work on a palm farm in Jordan Valley. He added: the settler asked me with some workers to come to his chicken farm in (Makhoara) Settlement which is adjacent to Lower Tana and that had been put on the lands of Beit Furick about 7 km to the east of the town. The settler asked us to kill and eradicate all chickens in the farm estimated at 80,000 birds, each bird weighed almost 2 kgs. The birds which already were found dead and were not slaughtered were noticed to have blueness (cyanosis) on their bodies with an obvious swelling at the neck.

He (the settler) asked us to slay all the chickens on the farm. After we had slayed a number of birds using some knives that are usually handled in picking up date, he asked us to kill the birds using sticks. Soon, a vet arrived and asked us to come back to slaying instead of using the sticks. When the vet left, the settler asked us to reuse the sticks for sake of speed. When he found that the process might be too lengthy, he brought a bulldozer and used it in killing the birds. The killed birds were loaded in trucks and carried to where we did not know.

One of the workers who particip! ated in the massacre took some live chickens home in a village in the Valley. Few days later, all these birds in step with the originally existing home birds and even all the birds (chickens) in the region passed away.

It is notable that the workers killed the first stable birds without wearing the appropriate uniform for such tasks or being provided with any idea about the reason of this massacre till the vet came and asked them to do so and never use the sticks.

It is noteworthy that the workers who participated in this mas! sacre could have been at danger of being infected or exposed to risks of any kind and so on. The workers still have not been submitted to any medical examinations.

For sake of more certainty, I (Yasser Mlitat) visited another witness who declared:

At about 7 o’clock in Thursday morning and while I was grazing my sheep in the aria, I saw two bulldozers digging. This took almost the whole day. Afterwards, three trucks with their boxes covered indicating that they were loaded with some thing that I couldn’t discover. The trucks left at about 4 pm. The next day I went to the area of digging to find that the hole was filled and covered with earth. It is still visible for eyes. Its area is approximately 80-100 square meters and about 3 meter deep. I saw the bulldozer enter the hole and disappear totally when the hole was almost finalized.

It is notable that this issue affected the inhabitants so adversely when they were informed with this issue. They became so confused and afraid of dealing with their chicke! ns and their domestic chickens. Moreover, a lot of the birds in the area passed away specially those raised at home.

Accordingly, we call upon all concerned organizations, departments and societies to help investigate in this issue, and work against repeating such actions for sake of human safety and preservation general health at areas which could exist at risk of disease and contagiousness.

By; Yasser Mlitat

13 January, 2006

Beit Furick-Nablus,

Information transmise par : bfscenter@yahoo.com