Dog dies a horrible death at Swakop

A LARGE black dog, wandering in the area of Swakopmund’s flooded sand pits, got stuck in the mud where it died of thirst and starvation.

Plot residents along the Swakop River told The Namibian that they heard a dog barking day and night for several days but could not find it. When they eventually found the dog stuck in the dried mud only a metre from the water’s edge, it was already dead. ‘It must have been a horrible death for this poor animal,’ said Thilo Neumann, who photographed the carcass with his cellphone. ‘We hope that the next victim will not be a person because the mud is very deep.’Neumann, who lives at the smallholdings, said the stinking, muddy pits are also a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which are plaguing people and animals alike.’The mosquitoes are very aggressive. They have no source of blood out there, and therefore they are taking every opportunity to attack what they can, especially from dusk to dawn,’ he said. ‘The people and animals here are being attacked without mercy.’According to him, everyone in a five-kilometre radius from the pits is negatively effected.The excavation of building sand was moved further upstream after the original pits were flooded in February.