Samba: the tragedy has lasted long enough!
Le combat pour Samba continue. Nous engageons une nouvelle procédure juridique pour faire reconnaître la détresse de cette éléphante aux mains de circassiens.
Since 2002, One Voice has been fighting to have Samba’s suffering recognized. Captured in Kenya when she was a baby, this elephant is enduring an ordeal in a French circus. It must stop! We are initiating legal proceedings against the Prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône so that it can assume its responsibilities and no longer tolerate such cruelty in an establishment that is attached to it.
How
far must an animal have to be persecuted for humans to admit that
it’s suffering? How far can trainers go without curbing their
violence? It’s been 32 years since Samba was born, almost as long
as she has had to endure this hell. For 17 years since we met this elephant kidnapped by a French circus, we have been fighting to save it.
Investigations,
expert reports, reports, petitions, demonstrations, legal action,
creation of a support committee, raising awareness to the public and
to the authorities denouncing this daily mistreatment. The infamous
conditions of detention that do not respect this elephant’s most
basic needs… We are carrying out this fight relentlessly, but the
exploitation of Samba continues to be tolerated, applauded even
during the shows she performs under the threat of the ankus hook. Her
drama drags on and on and will eventually kill her.
Repeated torture
The
latest images reported by our investigators speak for themselves.
Samba is at the end. Looking thinner than ever, lying on the tarmac
in a tiny enclosure and devoid of any enrichment, she shows only her
back, alone in the face of misfortune, motionless. You would think
she was dead. However, no, not yet. When she straightens up, she
resumes her all most robotic stereotypical movements on the verge of
madness. And one wonders how she has withstood this incessant trauma,
which has been her existence for so long.
The
memories of her first months of life have never left her. Perhaps it
is to them the reason she manages to hang on? These short 12 months
when she tasted the flavour of happiness, just after her birth in
Kenya, when she was still free and surrounded by her family …
Nothing and no one can make her forget the gestures of love from her
mother, the unwavering attachment of her family, games with younger
elephants of her own age, the pleasure of long walks in the African
bush, the joy of swimming together. However, this happiness was
snatched from her very early in life. One day, hunters came to
massacre her herd, her mother was murdered before her eyes. Samba was
only one year old. And that day, she was the only one not to have
been killed, her capture provoked to be the slowest and
heart-breaking agony of all… A plunge into nothingness, absurdity
and cruelty, which still continues, right to this day !
Let’s not continue to endorse this horror!
Shall
we leave the last word to this image of a traumatized and mistreated
elephant? Do we want to abandon Samba to her torturers until her last
breath? Since 2002, One Voice has been mobilizing so that her cage
does not become her tomb. In 2019, we are not abandoning the fight!
We demand that Samba’s suffering is finally recognized and that
loving and caring hands can take care of her!
Even
if the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône, where the circus is
registered, still turns a deaf ear to our calls after all these
years, we will have initiated legal proceedings against them. This
administration has the duty to impose on those who claim to be the
“owners” of Samba, her immediate transfer to a sanctuary.
The charges against them, the evidence we hold, is heavy enough to
keep us hoping for a success. Unless you want to hide your face and
continue to protect her torturers.
Please sign and share the petition #UnSanctuairePourSamba !