Animal Equality India, documented in Nepalthe largest animal sacrifice ritual in the world, performed during the 2024 Gadhimai festival, an event that takes place every five years in the south of this country.

About 1,500 buffaloes were slaughtered at the Gadhimai Temple in Nepal, as well as hundreds more in surrounding areas.

A group of activists managed to document the footage taken on December 8, despite the fact that the Gadhimai Temple Committee prohibited the taking of video or photographs of the event for try to hide from the world what is happening at this festival. During their fieldwork, the Animal Equality team documented:

Animals are transported (on foot or in trucks) for kilometers without food or water; animals killed by inexperienced people, which prolongs the suffering; animals killed with machetes, knives and other tools to prevent instant deathand the people cut off the ears of goats and buffaloes, leaving them to bleed.

After being transported for many kilometers hungry, dehydrated, walking or crammed into trucks, the animals faced a slow and painful death, carried out by inexperienced people with the help of rudimentary tools that caused animals not to die instantly, but their suffering was prolonged.

“The buffaloes were forced to watch other buffaloes being killed in front of them. Terrified, they huddled in corners in a desperate attempt to survive.. One by one, they were pulled by their tails and brutally killed,” said Amruta Ubale, director of Animal Equality India.

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While the massacre took place inside the complex, thousands of people were sacrificed goats, rams, pigeons, ducks and roosters in the surrounding lands. All this constitutes a violation of the Nepal Supreme Court ruling, which states that cruel, barbaric and unkind treatment of animals will not be tolerated.

Field work saved thousands of animals

Since 2014, Animal Equality has been working on the ground and with authorities to stop mass killing of animals at the Gadhimai festival.

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That same year, the organization met with officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and demanded to stop the crossing of animals across the Indian border during the festival, after which an order was issued with this provision. He also spoke with local religious leaders.

Thanks to the efforts of the organization and local activists, there was a reduction in the number of large animals killed during the event. In 2019, the number of large animals was 3203, in 2024 – 1500.