China sends lions, bears to Kabul's decaying zoo
Date: 03-Oct-02
Country: AFGHANISTAN
Zoo officials said the two lions would be kept in the cage which once housed Marjan, a lonely lame and half-blind male lion who died on a cold winter night earlier this year in a blaze of international publicity.
Marjan had survived decades of civil war in Afghanistan when the zoo was often in the frontline between rival factions shelling the capital.
He was badly hurt in 1995 when a fighter threw a hand grenade into his cage in revenge for the death of a cousin who had climbed into the cage to show his bravery only to be killed by Marjan and his partner.
Marjan's partner died of disease several years later.
The zoo, which has no running water or electricity, is in a sorry state, with just a few birds, several monkeys, a fox and a wolf.
