AFP :
Droves of braying donkeys were once the backbone of Pakistan’s commercial hub Karachi, but growing upkeep costs and the surging sprawl of the city are putting them out to pasture.
Jittering donkey carts have long been essential for aftermarket transport from southern Karachi’s wholesale bazaars, nested in narrow streets preventing regular vehicles from accessing their trove of wares.
For low-income workers, the beasts of burden provided a path to financial stability — their resilience, low overheads and integral role guaranteeing a modest and stable profit to live off.
But punishing inflation has made feed costly whilst the city has exploded in size, accommodating around 50 times more people today than before Pakistan’s independence, with vast distances testing the animal’s limits.
“We continued the work of our fathers, but I want my kids to study and do something else,” said Mohammad Atif, the warden of a donkey called Raja — meaning “King”.
The 27-year-old spends up to 750 rupees ($2.70) on hay for Raja per day. It used to cost just 200 rupees, the same amount Atif pays for a plate of food he splits with a colleague on increasingly common slow days.
“Now you can’t make a living in this line of work,” Atif told AFP in the colonial-era Bolton Market where everything from spices and water to cutlery and construction equipment is sold.
A good shift may earn him up to 4,000 rupees, far short of the expenses of his dependents and donkey.
There are just shy of six million donkeys in Pakistan, according to government estimates, one for every 40 people in the country.
Local animal broker Aslam Shah told AFP the majority were in Karachi, which exploded into a megacity of more than 20 million people after mass migration in the partition of Pakistan and India.
But the 69-year-old said they’re no longer a desired commodity at an animal market held each Sunday.