Moroccan Slaughterhouses Overwhelmed as Eid al-Adha Approaches Despite Royal Appeal

"Breeders and numerous intermediaries, driven away by the restrictions imposed on weekly souks where they intended to sell their animals, have fallen back on the slaughterhouses of Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat and other cities that have these approved infrastructures, to get by," reports Assabah.

The daily newspaper reports that "while waiting to be unloaded into the livestock circuit to be slaughtered, sheep are suffocating from the heat, lack of water, and long waiting lines that negatively impact the animals crammed into trucks."

"Things are becoming increasingly complicated in the slaughterhouse circuits of Casablanca, due to the high number of sheep that exceeds the slaughter capacity of these infrastructures," confirms Hicham Jouabri, regional secretary of butchers and wholesale red meat traders in Casablanca, to the same source.

To contain this flow, "the administration in charge of slaughterhouses, in coordination with the competent authorities, has decided to retain 30 sheep from each truck within the limit of a total capacity of 1,800 heads per day," he indicated.