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Little Tich

(6,171 posts) Wed Sep 28, 2016, 12:52 AM Sep 2016

The Cat Man of Aleppo: A crowd-sourced animal sanctuary in east Aleppo teaches compassion: ‘To love [View all]

the small, weak cats is to love everything’

Source: Syria Direct, AUG. 30, 2016

AMMAN: “Every cat has a story,” says Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel, a full-time ambulance driver and part-time cat caretaker living in rebel-held east Aleppo.

There’s Sukhoi, named for a Russian fighter plane, “because he’s so fast.” There’s Zorro the Noble, who defended one of the cats “when the others attacked her.”

“And then, there’s al-Baghdadi, who kills the other cats and takes their food,” earning him the name of the Islamic State leader.

Aljaleel recounted these and other tales of the more than 170 cats, two dogs and other animals that he feeds and houses in a cat shelter—the first of its kind in Syria—in the Masaken Hanano neighborhood of east Aleppo, one of the epicenters of the Syrian war.

How does Aljaleel run an animal shelter in a warzone? The answer is that he is not alone. An online network of supporters around the world is donating thousands of dollars to help not only the stray animals of east Aleppo, but also the humans experiencing the shortages and trauma of blockade and bombardment.