A video showing stray dogs being beaten and abused as they were being unloaded from a truck in Erbil went viral on social media and sparked outcry. It came days after Bardarash started sending the animals to an Erbil shelter following a fatal attack on a two-year-old child.
“A video has been circulated on social media showing poor treatment of dogs, allegedly from Erbil province, but this rumor is not true and we are not responsible for it,” Zhyar Jalal, head of Erbil’s services and environmental protection directorate, told Rudaw. “After that video, they can no longer bring the dogs to Erbil.”
Jalal mentioned that they were “unaware” of the poor treatment while accepting them from Bardarash.
A campaign was launched in Bardarash on Monday to collect stray dogs and send them to an Erbil shelter one week after a two-year-old child lost his life in a dog attack.
Bardarash district mayor Sirwan Hassan told Rudaw on Monday that relevant authorities concluded that the stray dogs must be rounded up after holding a “comprehensive meeting” and being transported to Erbil’s stray dog shelter.
A stray dog shelter was built in Erbil in 2023 at a cost of over 480 million dinars (around $320,000). It is located on the Erbil-Gwer road.
The high number of stray dogs in Kurdistan Region cities remains a long-standing concern, with population control efforts often facing criticism from animal rights organizations. Dog shelters in Erbil and Zakho have been reported to suffer from overcrowding and a lack of food, leading to poor conditions and many of the animals dying.
Violence against stray dogs is rife in the Kurdistan Region, with the animals often considered a menace and public health risk. They are commonly shooed away, beaten, hit with sticks, and killed by cars and gunshots.
