Animal Carnage
Animals slashed and stolen in land conflict.
Farm animals are starving and being mutilated in Zimbabwe, victims in the battle for land.
It’s now illegal to even milk a cow on a white-run farm - another absurdity in a country where people may soon be starving. We follow Meryl Harrison of the Zimbabwe Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals. Meryl must rescue animals from farms taken over by war veterans. Cattle have been slashed, farm animals brutalised. “By the time we were called in there were carcasses all over the Place and live pigs were eating dead pigs.” She goes to Gowrie Farm where farmer Terry Ford was killed in March, and whose body was famously pictured being guarded by his faithful dog. She is tasked with freeing a thoroughbred horse and returning it to Terry’s son, Mark. But whilst she is there she offers help to a war veteran’s dog. “We are non-political, there is no point in us being arrogant or critical. We do have to get on with the war-vets. Our job is to rescue the animals, nothing more.” A war veteran even uses his tractor to help Meryl winch a cow wedged deep down a hole – providing some hope of unity, despite the desperate outlook.
FULL SYNOPSIS