20,000 Chicks Gassed To Death After They Were Left Suffocating At Airport

20,000 chicks, locked in a container bound for Kinshasa, Congo, had to be euthanized Sunday, May 6, at Brussels airport, as reported by the news site BBC.

^{Source: AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev}

The animals should have taken off on May 5th, but several technical problems forced the plane to remain on the ground. After a second unsuccessful attempt the next day, the Belgian authorities decided to euthanize the animals, left in the full sun for a whole day.A spokeswoman for the Flemish animal welfare authorities, Brigitte Borgmans, said:

On Sunday evening, a number of chicks were already dead, so we suggested the exporter to take back the container, but they refused. We sent a veterinarian to the scene and he decided to euthanize the animals in order to shorten their suffering.

^{Source: EPA/Money Sharma}

It was the firefighters of the city of Zaventem who performed the task, after the refusal of firefighters from the airport to euthanize the chicks. The Flemish Agency for Animal Welfare has decided to draw up a report against the exporter for "violation of the animal welfare law".

^{H/t: BBC}