A British woman who decided to fundraise for an animal shelter in Egypt was forced to step in when she found out it was in fact what she’s dubbed a ‘death camp for dogs’.
Former military woman Claire Steele was then brought into the ‘dark side’ of the north African nation, where dogs endure the most horrific conditions at the hands of people.
They are raped, attacked and shot – with locals who cannot understand people would want to help the animals.
Claire had to throw food over the walls of the shelter just to try and feed the dogs, before paying thousands to rescue them herself.
She said the trauma of witnessing the treatment to dogs in Egypt is even worse than her time in the military.
It comes in a country which still remains a popular tourist destination for Brits, in a side that they do not often see.
Claire became involved with a local charity when she was in Egypt with the British army.
She said the charity was run by a man called Rami who owned a shelter for dogs called Paws Crossed.
Claire Steele pictured at the Paws Crossed Survivors sanctuary that she runs with her friend in Egypt
Claire began fundraising for the shelter in 2017 before finding out it was a ‘death camp for dogs’
The dogs were left by the old owner of the shelter with volunteers having to throw food over the walls
The dogs in the shelter were often badly injured or malnourished as a result of the poor treatment
Claire was forced to pay around £5,000 to be able to go into the shelter and rescue the dogs
Claire moved back to Wiltshire and began to help him out with fundraising.
However, Claire said she was soon ‘let down’, saying there are a ‘lot of dishonest people’ in animal welfare in Egypt.
She said: ‘I offered to try and get some dogs out of there and get them re-homed.
‘So I did that in 2018, and I took 8 dogs out of there and got them re-homed in the UK.
‘And then in 2019, he abandoned his shelter. Basically just left like maybe 100 dogs there, starving to death.
‘Yeah, he just. He just didn’t turn up one day, I think he moved away somewhere, but he just left the dogs and he didn’t put anything in place for them.’
Claire, with the help of another friend in Egypt attempted to step in to try and help the dogs in the shelter.
However, they discovered that what she believed had been a sanctuary, was more like a ‘death camp’ for the dogs.
Claire and her friend now keep the dogs at their sanctuary in Egypt where the dogs have a safe home
Claire previously served in the British Armed Forces, serving in Iraq, Kenya, Nepal and Egypt
Claire with one of her dogs at the animal sanctuary in Egypt
The dogs have all been rescued from owners who abused them or brought in from the streets
She said: ‘There was no food and the dogs were starving.
‘It was awful. Dogs were really badly injured in that in that shelter, and they didn’t get any support, no veterinary support, as you can imagine.
‘It was really terrible.
‘I used to call it like a death camp for dogs. It was like a concentration camp.
‘it was horrendous. We had dogs with limbs hanging off and puppies being born, dogs that were all breeding in there.’
Claire and her friend Sanaa attempted to take over the rescue, but were refused entry by the landlord.
It transpired that Rami had been running the shelter as a tenant and Claire was told that he had built up debt with his landlord before he fled.
Claire was faced with a decision whether to pay Rami’s debts in order to try and rescue the dogs.
Claire pictured with one of the dogs who was re-homed in the UK after being rescued
Dogs faced dire conditions in the old shelter, with no food and no one left to look after them
The landlord would not allow anyone else access to the building and the dogs were left to starve
Claire and her friend Sanaa, who lives in Egypt, took the dogs from the shelter and set up their own sanctuary
Claire pictured being awarded for her services to the military
She said: ‘It was a really painful process just to get food in. The landlord wouldn’t let anyone enter the land. We were having to throw food over the walls to feed the dogs.
‘I ended up paying off all the debt so that we could get the dogs out. About £5,000.
‘I managed to fundraise some of it and then pay the rest myself.’
After rescuing the dogs from the shelter, Claire and her friend Sanaa decided to set up their own sanctuary to give the dogs a real safe home to live in.
After seeing the horrors the animals had endured, they named it ‘Paws Crossed Survivors’.
Initially, the sanctuary was set up to help re-home the dogs and managed to give more than a hundred animals new homes in the UK, Canada and Austria.
However logistical challenges mean the pair have stopped re-homing the dogs and are now focused on ensuring they have a safe home in Egypt.
Claire said: ‘We call it a sanctuary now because we don’t focus on re-homing dogs anymore in the UK or abroad or anywhere else.
The dogs at the sanctuary are now looked after by Sanaa and Claire when she comes to visit
The pair have stopped re-homing the dogs and are now focused on ensuring they have a safe home in Egypt
Dogs in Egypt are often left to live in the streets where they face the dangers of disease and are often mistreated by humans
‘We realised that it is difficult to re-home dogs which have been traumatised or abused by humans, it takes a special kind of owner for that and not just anyone can take these dogs.’
Claire said the atrocities she has seen towards the animals in Egypt have traumatised her more than any of her experiences in the military.
She said: ‘We found dogs that have been hog tied there is a lot of rape, a lot of bestiality.
‘I rescued a dog once that was giving birth under a car, and as the dog was giving birth I saw children crawling under the car and taking the puppies, and smashing them on the ground as tools, killing them.
‘I’ve seen kids take puppies off the streets and take them to the market to be slaughtered for food.
‘I’ve seen people tie dogs to trees and then shoot them.
‘I’ve got a dog that I’m re-homing at the moment called Life. She was tied up and shot over 30 times with an air rifle. Miraculously she is still alive now.
Claire and Sanaa have rescued dogs who have faced horrors at the hands of their previous owners
Claire said the atrocities she has seen towards the animals in Egypt have traumatised her more than any of her experiences in the military
She said dogs are often raped, attacked or left without food, some even shot by their owners
The pair are now trying to help some of the street dogs who roam wild in the towns and villages
‘I’ve seen dogs being dragged through the streets with the owners having machetes sort of hacking at them.
‘We’ve taken in some really bad cases. It’s just this sick minded mentality.’
Claire said she has also experienced threats and break-ins while in Egypt.
‘Last time I was there we had a home invasion.
‘A van full of men turned up with guns and knives and threatened us.
‘They went through the whole shelter. We don’t know what they were looking for, what they wanted, but they just terrorized us for about six hours.
‘We had visitors from Canada there, too, that were visiting the sanctuary. So that was pretty scary for them.
‘It is just a really dangerous country. Especially for British and western women.’
Claire with some of her dogs at the Paws Crossed Survivors sanctuary in Egypt
Sanaa treating a dog at the shelter in Egypt, where she lives and looks after them around the clock
Claire with one of the dogs at the sanctuary, where they now fundraise to provide a safe place for them
With so many stray dogs in desperate need of care, the demand has become too great for Claire and Sanaa to take them all in.
They have begun a Trap, Neuter, Release (TNR) program to spay and neuter the dogs that live in the area.
Dogs from the local area are taken into their onsite clinic, given medications and vaccinations to allow them to be safer when they return to the streets.
Egypt is a popular tourist destination for Brits and Claire believes that away from the resorts, is Egypt’s ‘dark side’.
Her sanctuary is just an hour away from Giza, home to the world famous Pyramids which attract thousands of visitors from all over the world each year.
She said: ‘We have visitors come to the sanctuary to come and visit us and stay with us.
‘They come when they’ve come on holiday to Egypt and then come visit us.
‘But they’re absolutely appalled and quite traumatized actually. They always say to me, I’m never going back to Egypt. I don’t know how you can go there. I don’t know how you can work there.
Claire believes that away from the resorts, is Egypt’s ‘dark side’, where dogs are treated horrifically
The pair are now giving kibble to street dogs in order to try and vaccinate and neuter them
They also leave kibble outside the rescue so that street dogs can come to them to be treated
‘We have done spay programs sort of around Giza and I have countless tourists contact us to say, ‘I found this dog that’s been run over’, or ‘this dog that’s been abused’, or ‘this dog that’s starving. Can you help?’
‘They will send us an email saying that they befriended this dog and there anything that you can do?
‘So the general public visiting Egypt are just appalled by it.
‘There are no rescue centres, the is no RSPCA here that people can take a dog to and actually, local people think you’re insane for helping a dog.
‘We get abused all the time. We have a project called Street Paws and it’s a feeding program.
‘We have kibble, we call it our Kibble Fund, and we go out to feed stray dogs.
‘We have our areas that we go to for food drops and we get so much abuse from people for doing that.
‘They say ‘why are you feeding the dogs, what about us?’ And they take the food. They steal the food for themselves.
Sanaa with one of the dogs at the sanctuary which they are helping to treat
Some of the dogs have faced horrors at the hands of their previous owners, one pictured here lost their front leg
Claire said the Egyptian locals don’t understand why they want to help the dogs
A street dog pictured among dirt and litter on the side of the road in rural Egypt
‘I call it like the dark side. It’s what tourists don’t see.
‘People that go to resorts and stay in the resorts in Egypt, and don’t go out anywhere else. They say, ‘Oh, Egypt’s beautiful’ and it’s because they stayed in this amazing hotel. It’s because the workers go out and literally poison any dogs in that vicinity.
‘It’s dark, it’s dirty, it’s beyond cruel. It’s despicable.
‘Unthinkable things happening to animals just behind that resort or a few miles away from that place. It is really dark.’
Claire is just one volunteer working in Egypt to try and save dogs and raise awareness about the treatment of animals.
Georgia Tesfaye, 30, has started rescuing dogs from Egypt after hearing gruesome stories of abuse, forced amputations and even rapes of animals in the country.
After working with dogs from a young age, Georgia said working to help rescue dogs from Egypt gave her life a ‘purpose’ and set up her charity Four Paws One Heart in 2024.
She previously told The Mail the abuse faced by animals in Egypt is ‘surreal’, with hundreds in need of rescuing.
Rocky the Belgian Malinois had his leg cut off by his previous owners in Egypt
Hope the Golden Retriever was rescued from Egypt after she had signs of being raped by a man
Georgia claims she has seen dogs that have been hit by cars, poisoned, beaten, thrown form buildings, being hung, raped, used for dog fighting and being electrocuted.
She said: ‘Every worse possible way to hurt an animal is done and it is very real. It is heartbreaking.’
In one horrific example, she rescued a Golden Retriever called Hope which they believed had been raped.
She said: ‘Hope was lifeless and she had been thrown on the street, it appeared she had been raped by a human.
‘She had an infection of her uterus as well as sepsis and her organs were all failing.
‘Hope was in a critical condition for a very long time.
‘Unfortunately we have seen that this is a common occurrence for the animals here.
The day after finding Hope, Georgia found another Golden Retriever called Daisy in the exact same location.
Rocky had his leg cut off by his old owners, who did not want to pay for veterinary bills
‘She was lifeless, with the same injuries and completely soul broken,’ she added.
‘Her injuries and organ failure were so severe that she had to be put down.
‘It was absolutely heartbreaking.
‘A week later there was reports of a cat being seen raped by a man, in the street, in the same location we found Hope and Daisy.’
Hope has been lucky. She had overcome her illness and has started to recover from the mental abuse she faced.
Georgia described her as a ‘miracle’. The 10-year-old is now ready to be adopted and find a family who look after her.
There are estimated to be around 15 million stray dogs in Egypt.
Traditionally in Egypt dogs have been considered an unclean animal that should not be owned for companionship, which can often lead to their poor treatment.
In another heartbreaking case, a Malinois called Rocky has his leg cut off by his owners who refused veterinary treatment.
Hope had an infection of her uterus as well as sepsis and her organs were all failing when she was found
She found that Rocky had injuries from being attacked, include a bit wound which had left him without one of his ears.
He was also missing part of his front leg when he was found.
Georgia said: ‘We believe he had been used as bait for a very long time.
‘However the most horrific part is that his front leg had been cut off with a machete
‘The bone was protruding out and its clear he had been this way for some days.
‘We believe his leg was injured from a fight, and instead of seeking veterinary treatment they cut his leg off, as this is a common occurrence.
Despite what Rocky faced, Georgia described the dog as the ‘most loving, trusting, affectionate sweet boy’.
She added: ‘He absolutely adores us, he really trusts us.
Hope is now ready to be adopted and find a family who look look after her Pictured: Hope and Georgia
‘He has so much love to give and it would be a dream if he found a family of his own.
‘We have been very luckily offered a prosthetic leg to be made for free for him in the UK in Norfolk. So we are desperate for him to find a foster or adopter in the Norfolk area so that his leg can be made. And his new life can begin forgetting his horrid past.’
Still in its early stages, her charity is currently only able to rescue one dog at a time, due to the cost of veterinary care for each one which comes into her ownership.
She added: ‘We wish to rescue every single animal from the market, and if we could, we really would.
‘But we just wouldn’t be able to afford all their care, or have anywhere to put the 100s of dogs. Its so cruel, and our soul and heart rips to shreds every time we have to leave the others behind.’
