NEWS FEATURE: theanchormedia.org
By Rose Mwangangi in Mwingi
For generations, the donkey has endured its place as the Beast of Burden in silence.
It has carried water across dry plains, ferried firewood from distant thickets, transported farm produce to market centres and borne the weight of rural survival without complaint.
In many homes across Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands, the donkey has never merely been an animal. It has been labour, transport, resilience and livelihood rolled, into one exhausted creature of burden.
But today, the donkey appears trapped beneath a new and far more sinister burden — the growing commercial hunger for its meat and skin.
What was once a dependable companion to poor households is increasingly becoming prey in a lucrative trade that continues to alarm animal welfare groups, rural communities and security authorities alike.
The latest evidence of that troubling reality emerged in Mwingi, where authorities intercepted a trailer ferrying tonnes of donkey hides under suspicious circumstances.
The seizure has revived painful questions about the escalating slaughter of donkeys across the country, even as communities continue to lose animals essential to their economic survival.
Even more unsettling is the emerging pattern behind the trade.
The intercepted consignment is said to have originated from a region where camel, goat and sheep traditionally dominate as the preferred sources of meat.
In those communities, donkey meat has historically not occupied a central place in dietary culture.
That reality has deepened suspicion around the expanding underground trade in donkey products and the destination of the hides.
Questions are also quietly emerging around the religious dimensions of the matter.
Given that the area in question is predominantly Muslim, concerns have been raised over whether donkey meat can genuinely qualify as halal under Islamic dietary practice.
Yet despite the questions, the trade appears persistent. Authorities say a trailer loaded with donkey hides was impounded at Nguutani Police Station after it was intercepted during a multi-agency security operation mounted at Kanyonyoo.
According to Mwingi North Deputy County Commissioner Rukia Chitechi, the truck was found carrying approximately 16 tonnes of donkey hides. It was today confirmed that the container had 2,650 pieces of donkey skins.
Two suspects arrested with the vehicle remain in police custody pending arraignment before the Mwingi Law Courts.
The incident now adds to mounting concern over the fate of donkeys in Kenya, where demand for hides — largely linked to international markets — has over the years fuelled theft, illegal slaughter and cross-border smuggling.
For many families in rural Kenya, the donkey remains the poor man’s tractor, pick-up vehicle and transport system combined. Its disappearance is not merely an animal welfare issue. It is an economic disaster for households already struggling against drought, poverty and failing infrastructure.
And now, for the animal once celebrated as the beast of burden, even its skin has become a burden too.
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