The Forgotten Victims of Displacement#
Of all the casualties of war, the ones that receive the least official attention are those whose absence is often felt most acutely. As the battlespace is increasingly pushed into cities, the line between combat zone and living room has blurred. The result is a phenomenon that international humanitarian law (IHL) and disaster response frameworks are profoundly unprepared for: the mass displacement, abandonment, and suffering of companion and street animals.
Long the responsibility of an under-resourced network of volunteers, the fate of these animals is becoming a matter of operational significance. They affect refugee flows, soldier morale, and public health. Their treatment reveals a moral accounting gap in modern warfare that is forcing legal scholars and humanitarian organisations to reconsider where the “long tail” of a conflict truly ends.
The Human-Animal Bond as a Factor in Displacement#
During crises, decisions to delay or refuse evacuation are often influenced by the presence of pets. The emotional toll on displaced people is “exacerbated by the sometimes unavoidable abandonment of companion animals,” with many refusing to leave—or risking return—out of attachment to their animals. In Ukraine, a report from the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) documented how civilians “delayed escape, or refused it entirely, because they couldn’t abandon animals that were part of their family.”
This bond has physiological and psychological dimensions. Dr. Richard Mollica of Harvard Medical School’s Program in Refugee Trauma notes that companion animals can interrupt the “psychic numbing”—the emotional shutdown that allows people to function in constant danger—that is common in war. “You wake up in the morning with fear of death and annihilation,” Mollica explains, “And then your dog jumps on you, gives you love, and, for that moment, you’re living in the present. You can feel again.” On the front lines, soldiers have also turned to animals to cope with the stress of war, with research suggesting the bond can reduce the severity of post-traumatic stress symptoms and aid in therapeutic processes.
The failure of governments and aid agencies to account for this bond has direct consequences. A report from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) argues that in most emergencies, scarce human protection resources create a moral tension: how can we justify protecting companion animals when people are starving? Yet the reality of contemporary displacement makes policy-making for pet displacement a necessity. When thousands of people refuse to evacuate without their animals, failing to plan for them ceases to be a matter of sentiment and becomes one of effective humanitarian logistics.
The Rescuers' Burden#
Filling the void left by official neglect are informal, often dangerous networks of volunteer rescuers. In Ukraine, the organisation “12 Guardians,” founded by Lala Tarapakina, has reportedly rescued over 40,000 animals from active combat zones. “Many people were forced to flee under shelling, losing friends, relatives and limbs along the way. They left lots of animals behind, and we evacuated them under artillery shelling,” Tarapakina told the BBC. In Zaporizhzhia, volunteers set up an 11-apartment shelter to house 700 cats rescued from conflict zones near the front line, a testament to both the ingenuity and the desperation of the effort.
The scale of the task can be overwhelming. Alyona Ovcharenko and her husband evacuated over 180 animals—64 dogs and 117 cats—from Kostyantynivka under Russian drone fire, transporting not just the animals but also disassembled enclosures and even linoleum from a “cat house.” Volunteers now arm themselves with drone detectors and travel under anti-drone netting to deliver food and veterinary care.
The risks are existential. When a Russian drone struck the “Give a Paw, Friend” shelter in Zaporizhzhia, over a dozen animals were killed instantly. A steel door saved the staff, who then worked with residents to clear the rubble and catch escaped animals.
In Iraq, similar dynamics have unfolded over two decades. The Humane Center for Animal Welfare, based in neighbouring Jordan, travelled into Iraq after the 2003 invasion to find skeletal dogs and cats roaming the streets, fed sporadically by coalition soldiers. Organisations like SPCA International’s “Operation Baghdad Pups” and Paws of War’s “War Torn Pups & Cats” programme have spent years reuniting American service members with dogs and cats they bonded with during deployments, at costs of $3,000–$4,000 per animal.
The Geopolitics of Animal Evacuation#
When the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021, the chaotic Western airlift became a crucible for the moral hierarchy of evacuation. Paul “Pen” Farthing, a former Royal Marine who founded the Nowzad animal shelter, launched “Operation Ark” to fly out 173 rescued cats and dogs, along with his staff. The animals made it onto a chartered plane, but his Afghan team was left behind. The episode ignited a furious debate. Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat asked, “Why is my five-year-old worth less than a dog?” As one columnist assessed, the evacuation became “a gift to extremist movements across the Middle East” who could claim the West held foreign lives contemptuously cheap.
Ukraine has, by contrast, forced a policy evolution. The EU’s unprecedented decision to waive standard requirements such as rabies vaccination and microchipping for refugees bringing pets was a significant recalibration. Kristin Bergtora Sandvik of PRIO notes that this may represent a “game changer” for how we understand pets as a humanitarian protection problem.
The Darker Legacy#
When human displacement is massive and prolonged, companion animals can become problematic survivors in a devastated landscape. In 2010, the Iraqi government initiated a campaign to cull an estimated 1.25 million stray dogs that had multiplied in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion crippled public services. Over three months, teams of veterinarians and police shooters killed 58,500 dogs using rifles and poisoned meat. The method sparked safety concerns—three children were hospitalised with gunshot wounds after encountering a hunting team—and an outcry from animal rights activists who called for neutering programmes instead. Baghdad’s chief veterinarian defended the cull as the only option, given the scale of the problem and the threat of rabies. The dogs were the indirect casualties of a conflict that had toppled a government and paralysed municipal services for nearly a decade.
Syria’s urban ruins presented a different kind of problem: the abandonment of captive wild animals. At Aleppo’s “Magic World” amusement park, most of the zoo’s population died from starvation or shelling after the owner fled. In 2017, a team from Four Paws International mounted a military-style extraction of the survivors—five lions, two tigers, two bears, two hyenas, and two dogs. The convoy, snaking over 1,000 kilometres to Turkey, was planned for six weeks and required coordination with the Turkish government and private security firms to avoid snipers and air strikes. “It’s like Mission Impossible,” said Dr. Amir Khalil, the veterinarian who led the operation.
A Blind Spot in International Law#
The suffering of companion animals during war is no accident of circumstance; it is enabled by a legal structure that renders them almost invisible. Under IHL, animals are treated “mostly as objects and not as humans,” with scholars describing them as “the unknown victims of armed conflicts.” A 2024 legal analysis from the International Institute of Humanitarian Law concluded that “IHL does not consider animals as they are, that is as sentient beings that might also experience pain, stress, suffering, nor does it consider their needs during conflicts.” As one report notes, their status as property means their loss “is often recorded only as material damage.”
The scholarly community has begun to mobilise around this gap. A major 2022 volume, Animals in the International Law of Armed Conflict, published by Cambridge University Press, calls for animals to be explicitly protected not only because of their value to humans—as military assets or economic resources—but as sentient creatures. The editors argue that “wildlife populations usually decline during warfare, with disastrous repercussions on the food chain,” while “livestock, companion, and zoo animals, highly dependent on human care, are direct victims of hostilities.”
In parallel, public health researchers are pressing for a framework that treats animals as integral to disaster planning. A 2024 paper in CABI One Health argued for “international One Health guidelines and standards for the evacuation and care of small companion animals in humanitarian crises,” warning that failing to do so endangers both human and animal well-being and undermines the efficacy of response operations.
The informal networks operating in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are, in practice, far ahead of the law. They are running ad hoc ambulance services, negotiating humanitarian corridors for dog food, and building underground shelters. Their work demonstrates that the question of what to do with the animals of war is not marginal. It is a central, unaddressed, and growing feature of modern civilian displacement—and one that the law, in its long tail, has yet to reach.
References#
Sandvik, K. B. (2022, May 25). Pets and humanitarian borders. Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). https://www.prio.org/comments/651
CEPA. (2026, April 14). Animal magic: Pets and vets aid Ukraine’s resistance. Centre for European Policy Analysis. https://cepa.org/article/animal-magic-pets-and-vets-aid-ukraines-resistance/
Shevchenko, V. (2026, April 25). ‘Animals are traumatised too’: Pet rescuers under fire in Ukraine. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn783emlgdno
Lieberman Lawry, L. (2024). Considering the human-animal bond in developing One Health guidelines and standards for companion animals in humanitarian crises. CABI One Health. https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.1079/cabionehealth.2024.0010
NV Ukraine. (2026, March 11). Exclusive: Couple successfully evacuates 180 animals from Kostyantynivka under Russian fire. NV. https://english.nv.ua/nation/brave-couple-evacuated-180-animals-from-the-approaching-front-nv-50590691.html
112.ua. (2026, May 11). 11 apartments in Zaporizhzhia shelter 700 cats from war zones. 112 Ukraine. https://112.ua/en/u-zaporizzi-volonteri-oblastuvali-11-kvartir-dla-700-kotiv-z-prifrontovih-zon-160770
The New Arab. (2021, August 28). Charity boss, animals flown out of Kabul, not Afghan staff. The New Arab. https://www.newarab.com/news/charity-boss-animals-flown-out-kabul-not-afghan-staff
The Guardian. (2021, August 30). What a story to tell the world: Britain values dogs more than Afghan people. The Guardian. https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/30/britain-dogs-afghan-people-pen-farthing
CBC Radio. (2017, July 31). ‘It’s like Mission Impossible,’ says vet who helped rescue starving animals from Aleppo zoo. CBC. https://amp.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.4229080
BBC News. (2003, July 23). Call to save Iraq’s stray dogs. BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3086553.stm
HumanePro. (2011). Saving our soldiers’ pets. HumanePro Magazine. https://humanepro.org/magazine/articles/saving-soldier-pets
Kyiv Post. (2010, June 10). In security, Baghdad tackles 1 million stray dogs. Kyiv Post. https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/content/world/in-security-baghdad-tackles-1-million-stray-dogs-69212.html
IWPR. (2010, July 15). Baghdad dog cull raises alarm. Institute for War & Peace Reporting. https://iwpr.net/global-voices/baghdad-dog-cull-raises-alarm
Walden University. (2015). The human-animal bond and combat-related posttraumatic stress symptoms. ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/2092
Kearney Hub. (2025, March 3). How one US organization reunites military personnel with the animals they rescued overseas. Kearney Hub. https://kearneyhub.com/news/nation-world/government-politics/collection_2fea27f1-d35d-5632-81cf-2e8e7536489d.html
Minute Mirror. (2026, March 16). Animals, war, and climate disasters: The law’s quiet blind spot. Minute Mirror. https://minutemirror.com.pk/animals-war-and-climate-disasters-the-laws-quiet-blind-spot-521530
Vultaggio, G. (2024, September 27). The unknown victims of armed conflicts. International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL). https://iihl.org/the-unknown-victims-of-armed-conflicts
Peters, A., Kolb, R., & de Hemptinne, J. (Eds.). (2022). Animals in the international law of armed conflict. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/animals-in-the-international-law-of-armed-conflict/DA9EA3AF4F252F1DC0ECAFD8016B6406
This is the fourth article in a six-part series, "The Animal Proxies," examining the role of animals in modern warfare. The next instalment will explore the law's blind eye: the legal frameworks—and their gaps—that govern the treatment of animals in armed conflict.