It was last Thursday night when the Italian activist Davide, a member of the CABS (Committee Against Bird Slaughter) NGO, drove with another volunteer to known wild bird trapping sites in Avgorou with aimed at locating sound-imitating devices. The development of the research, however, was not something to be expected.
Davide described exclusively to AlphaNews.Live what she dramatically experienced with him savage beating by three hooded men in an open area. An attack that, as he told us, was not the first, but it was the worst in recent years.
The Italian activist and his volunteer friend were in the car when they heard a noise near the areas where illegal bird trapping has been frequently observed. After the volunteer picked up the phone to call the Hunting and Fauna Service, he began to walk carefully to the site to locate the source of the noise. It was where Davide was he realized that there were nets in the area and so he immediately called his volunteer friend to inform the gamekeepers accordingly and lead them straight to the place where they had been set up.
"Unfortunately, gamekeepers are only willing to collect nets and bird imitators when we provide them with their exact location, instead of looking for the location themselves and trying to catch poachers. We practically do the work that they should do themselves. "This requires us to approach bird trapping sites and put ourselves in danger."
As he waited for the rangers to arrive, three masked men by the nets spotted him.
"One of them got into a car without license plates and started moving in a circle around me, while the other two started running towards me. I was soon surrounded and attacked. As soon as they caught me, they pushed me to the ground, punched me in the face and kicked me all over my body. They did not let me get up. I was shouting all the time “help, help! Police! My face was covered in blood. They took my bag from my waist and stole my personal phone, work phone and a small camera. I was on the ground and could not wake up for a while. I was threatened not to go back there… "
According to the victim's description, After leaving him covered in blood on the ground, the perpetrators ran back and started lowering the nets and killing birds, until the gamekeepers finally reached the spot. Then the three young poachers left the dead birds on the ground and left slowly by car and the lights off. They drove for a while, stopped a few tens of meters away and remained there in the dark watching the scene, Davide explained.
"Although we told the rangers that the perpetrators were very close, they did not consider it necessary to try to find them."
The Italian activist, due to the injuries he suffered, was transported to the General Hospital of Famagusta where he received medical treatment. As he explained, this is the worst episode of aggression recorded since the dissolution of Ulamos Pataxis Poaching.
"The levels of aggression return to those before 2012, when we first started working with Ulamos Pataxis Pothrachias. Violence against us was greatly reduced when the Ulamo police force was established. Three years ago, the Cypriot government decided that he was no longer needed and was disbanded. Since then poaching has increased again and this year is skyrocketing. Due to the lack of enforcement in recent years, we have been exposed to many more risks. "Organized criminal gangs and small groups of young poachers from the same village would always be trapped undisturbed if we were not on the island."
The NGO CABS operates from Spain to Lebanon, but "no other country has these levels of illegal bird trapping, lack of interest from the authorities and aggression against foreign volunteers," Davide concluded.
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