25/08/2026
THE GLOBAL FIGHT TO SAVE DONKEYS
We were tagged in a post concerning reports that Botswana’s President, Duma Boko, has encouraged Batswana to consider large-scale donkey farming to supply the Chinese market.
If accurately reported, this is deeply concerning - particularly when viewed against Botswana’s own disturbing history with the donkey-skin trade.
In February 2024, African Heads of State endorsed a landmark 15-year moratorium on the commercial slaughter of donkeys for their skins, recognising the devastating consequences of this trade for animal welfare, donkey populations and the millions of people who depend upon these animals for their livelihoods.
Botswana provides a sobering example of precisely why this protection is so desperately needed.
In 2017, the Botswana government suspended donkey slaughter and exports after horrifying conditions were uncovered at the Chinese-owned Bo Chang abattoir in Francistown. Approximately 500 emaciated, dead and dying donkeys were reportedly discovered, while decomposing carcasses had been dumped in makeshift pits - raising serious environmental concerns.
And yet, in 2018, the trade was allowed to resume.
This is not an isolated example.
In Shinyanga in north-western Tanzania, another Chinese-owned and government-sanctioned donkey abattoir was permitted to operate despite widespread welfare concerns. Although licensed to slaughter no more than 20 donkeys per day, evidence subsequently indicated that this limit was being grossly exceeded and that donkeys were being transported over vast distances, arriving injured and being subjected to appalling treatment.
Tanzanian authorities eventually moved to close the facility in 2021 after finding violations of animal-welfare, humane-slaughter and abattoir-hygiene requirements.
And today, in South Africa, the **Chinese-owned Brievo donkey abattoir in Schweizer-Reneke in South Africa’s North West Province - managed, extraordinarily, by a former NSPCA inspector - continues to operate within the government’s so-called “controlled” slaughter model.
During an NSPCA inspection earlier this year, approximately 180 severely emaciated and parasite-ridden donkeys were discovered at Brievo. The most critically compromised animals had to be euthanised, while the remaining donkeys were sent to slaughter.
A deeply troubling pattern is impossible to ignore.
Across the continent, African governments have repeatedly licensed or permitted Chinese-owned commercial interests to establish and operate donkey slaughterhouses - facilities created principally to satisfy China’s enormous demand for donkey skins.
From Bo Chang in Botswana, to Fang Hua in Shinyanga, Tanzania, to Brievo in South Africa, the same model has been repeated: Africa’s donkeys are commodified, slaughtered and exported to supply the ejiao industry, while African communities are left to bear the consequences.
To be absolutely clear, this is not about vilifying China or the Chinese people. Our objection is to the commercial donkey-skin industry, the operators who profit from it and the African governments that continue to facilitate it. Accountability must be directed wherever responsibility lies.
This is not responsible agricultural development. It is the systematic extraction of one of Africa’s most important working-animal resources for the benefit of an overseas industry.
At Karoo Donkey Sanctuary, we believe Africa’s donkeys deserve better.
They are not disposable raw materials.
They are sentient animals. They are working partners. Across our continent, they carry water, transport goods, support agriculture and provide an essential lifeline to countless rural families.
The African Union recognised what is at stake when it endorsed the 15-year moratorium.
Karoo Donkey Sanctuary will continue to call upon the South African government - and every African Union member state - to honour that moratorium and end the commercial slaughter of donkeys for their skins.
Africa has spoken. It is time its governments listened.
