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Hi, I'm Cath! I spent 3 months in 2024 travelling around Morocco before deciding to move here after seeing the dire situation of the street dogs.
The Moroccan government are attempting to 'clean up' the streets ahead of cohosting the FIFA World Cup in 2030. Recently Morocco hosted the AFCON tournament and with the lead up they 'collected' thousands of dogs. These dogs are taken to government funder 'shelters' where they are ultimately killed. There have also been countless reports of mass shootings during the nights throughout the country along with poisoning.
I'm based in the Agadir region where there is only 2 associations. This is the only option for vaccinating and neutering the animals along with community members and tourists helping and this is all solely based on donations. Since 2019 Morocco has been receiving funding from the World Health Organisation to ease the situation but this funding has not been distributed to local charities as promised.
Once a dog has been vaccinated and castrated they are given an ear tag by the vet. This is a form of protection for the dogs. The government are constantly backing the TNVR programme (trap, neuter, vaccinate and release) but the evidence collected over the years show this really isn't the case and there hasn't been any reports of dogs being released once captured by the authorities.
The main campaign the government is using is sending out men late at night to collect dogs, throw them in a truck and these dogs are never seen again. The hope always is that they don't take dogs that have an ear tag.
The costs to protect a dog is:
Vaccinations - £25 each (2 required plus castration for ear tag)
Castration - male £70 - £100 female £100 - £120 (depending on which vet used)
Please also read some of the articles with real evidence of the treatment and potential fate of so many dogs:
There is also a community project who have created and sell T shirts with 100% of profits going towards the street animals. I work closely with this incredible group of people. Their Instagram is @beldis_from_morocco where you can see first hand where all the donations go and the difference to an animal's life you can make. There is also activist group @iawpc who are heavily monitoring the situation in Morocco, posting evidence and advocating for a change.
Any shares to spread awareness of the dogs here in Morocco will be a huge help! If you are able to donate it will be incredibly appreciated to help change a dog's life.
Thank you so much for reading