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4-year-old boy’s death sparks debate on Bucharest stray dogs

BUCHAREST — The death of Ionut Anghel, a 4-year-old boy, fatally mauled by a stray dog while playing with his older brother in a park has sparked a new impassioned debate over the danger of strays in the city.

A protester demanding the killing of stray dogs holds a picture of 4-year-old Ionut Angel, who was fatally mauled last Monday, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Sept 8, 2013. Photo: AP

A protester demanding the killing of stray dogs holds a picture of 4-year-old Ionut Angel, who was fatally mauled last Monday, in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Sept 8, 2013. Photo: AP

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BUCHAREST — The death of Ionut Anghel, a 4-year-old boy, fatally mauled by a stray dog while playing with his older brother in a park has sparked a new impassioned debate over the danger of strays in the city.

The debate includes a controversial plan of capturing and killing of Bucharest’s tens of thousands of strays, blamed for dozens of attacks every day that need medical treatment.

Romanian President Traian Basescu, a vocal supporter of stray dog euthanasia, has also called on the government of Prime Minister Victor Ponta to pass a law that would allow for stray dogs to be killed. “Humans are above dogs,” Mr Basescu said.

Nonetheless, animal lovers and dog-wary citizens preferred an alternative, requesting for a referendum next month on whether to go forward.

Stray dogs roam the streets of Bucharest, sad-eyed, scraggly mongrels that shelter in demolition sites, rifle through garbage and increasingly attack humans. The capital’s massive stray dog population, a legacy of communism and its aftermath, can have lethal consequences: In recent years, a Bucharest woman was killed by a pack of strays, and a Japanese tourist died after a stray severed an artery in his leg.

“We will do what Bucharest’s people want, exactly what they want,” Mayor Sorin Oprescu said last week in announcing the Oct 6 referendum.

The stray dog population of this city of 2 million rose rapidly as the city expanded into once rural areas after communism ended in 1989. Animal welfare group Vier Pfoten says the city has 40,000 stray dogs, while City Hall claims there are 64,000 strays.

The Matei Bals hospital which handles infectious diseases has treated 9,760 people for dog bites in the first eight months of the year, of which a quarter were children, according to spokesman Catalin Apostolescu.

The controversy has reached such a fever pitch that Ms Brigitte Bardot, the French screen siren-turned-outspoken animal rights activist, has stepped into the debate. “I am extremely shocked to find that revenge, which has no place here, will be taken on all the dogs in Romania, even the gentle ones,” Ms Bardot said in an open letter to Mr Basescu, published on her foundation’s site.

Bucharest has historically had a thriving stray dog population. The current law only allows the killing of stray dogs that are sick. AP

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