Cosatu condemms the suspension of culling lions

The Congress of South African trade union (Cosatu) in North West has condemned the suspension of the decision to put down 10 lions that mauled a nine-year-old boy to death at Woodburrow farm in Tosca near Vryburg.

The lions were supposed to have been culled yesterday. The farm owner's permit that allows the keeping of the lions had expired at the time of the incident.

Officials say that they received an instruction to suspend the culling last night. The officials sent by the department did not possess the court order to enter the farm as well as for culling the lions.

We are really disappointed: Cosatu
Solly Phetoe, the Cosatu's provincial secretary, said: "We are really disappointed in terms of the manner in which we have been treated. The department of agriculture knew yesterday that they were supposed to come to do this work, but we still going to take this matter up with the relevant MEC who called and asked the department to call off this thing”.

"We are not happy. But the campaign programme of Cosatu to deal with all this matter of killing farm workers and families by lions is not going to stop. We are going to make sure that this campaign is going up to the national level," Phetoe said.