Animal facilities

Warning: There are a few somewhat graphic/disturbing images toward the end of this post.

Another area of interest in Djibouti is related to vector-borne and zoonotic disease (pathogens carried by insects and animals). Each year, over three million animals are transported from Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, through Djibouti, to the Arabian peninsula and Gulf states, so there's huge potential for an outbreak of an emerging disease or the spread of an endemic disease. To develop a surveillance system for these types of diseases, I first met yesterday afternoon with a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture. With his support, today, I am trying to visit three main animal facilities in the country - the animal quarantine facility, the national slaughterhouse - to determine if any would be suitable for disease surveillance and/or research.

This morning, I started the day with a trip to the animal quarantine facility which receives all animals for quarantine as they arrive in Djibouti. I was given a full tour of the facilities and learned about the systems by which animals are received and shipped. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures inside the facilities (it's owned by a private Saudi Arabian company and the owner who was showing me around didn't seem very pleased when I asked if I could take pictures) but I took a few pictures of the camels just outside the gate.

Camels waiting to enter the quarantine

Camels being herded into the quarantine - each one is inspected and vaccinated as it enters

After gathering all the information I needed at the quarantine facility, I headed to the slaughterhouse. In Djibouti, animals are slaughtered over night to avoid the heat of the day and so that the meat is available in the market first thing in the morning, so by the time I arrived, no animals were being killed, but I still had a full tour of the facility. First I walked through the holding areas where animals are kept before slaughter.
From here, the animals are brought inside to the slaughtering areas.
The carcasses are then loaded onto trucks to be transported to the markets for sale.
Their hides are treated with salt and laid outside to dry in the sun before being sold in bulk to leather producers.
I spent a lot of time at the quarantine and slaughterhouse facilities, so I wasn't able to visit the livestock farm near town, but I felt like I had seen enough. By the end of my time in the slaughterhouse, I was pretty much ready to move on and hop on a plane out of Djibouti.