NewMaimed camel begging photos spark Chinese social media outrage

Photographs of a maimed camel have sparked uproar on social media in China after suggestions that beggars had cut the animal’s hooves off to elicit cash donations.

Two beggars were photographed kneeling in front of the skinny camel, holding it by the reins as it crawled along the road in Foshan, Guangdong province over the weekend.

The Weibo microblogger who originally uploaded the photos said the “camel’s limbs are maimed” and suggested the injuries were sustained in a deliberate act by the beggars.

“Please do not harm animals to draw sympathy! They should not be used as an instrument of begging,” read the posting by a user with the alias “Xia Men Jiao Ya”.

The posting quickly went viral on China’s biggest social networking site with many posters condemning the beggars’ alleged cruelty and others expressing sympathy for the animal.

A number of users questioned however if the photos had created a misperception as they wondered if the camel had simply folded its lower limbs close to its thighs as it sat on the ground.

But Nuerjiang Maidier, an associate professor from Xinjiang Agricultural University, who studies camel rearing, said the lower parts of the camel’s four limbs had been cut off.