SAD: Disturbing Images From China’s Annual Dog Meat Festival

The city in the south eastern region of Guangxi holds an annual festival on the summer solstice devoted to the consumption of dog meat.

During the annual Dog Meat Festival, more than 10 million dogs are killed for food in China, with up to 10,000 killed for the Yulin festival. On Monday, traders sold dogs openly from the back of scooters as hundreds gathered at markets. Many dogs were kept in tightly packed cages.

Activists, who say the festival is cruel, have in the past travelled to the city to hold demonstrations, sometimes buying dogs to save them from the cooking pots. This year the festival has also been targeted by British comedian Ricky Gervais, who posted a series of messages on Twitter with the hashtag “StopYuLin2015″, writing on Sunday: “It should be called a Dog Torture Festival. Because that’s what it is.”