Conflicts and their aftermath create complex welfare emergencies for livestock through displacement, veterinary service collapse, land mine contamination, and breakdown of traditional animal husbandry systems.
Post-conflict livestock welfare is an overlooked dimension of conflict recovery that matters both for the animals and for the rural communities that depend on them for food security and livelihoods. Animals in conflict zones and their aftermath experience acute welfare crises — starvation, injury, abandonment, and disease — that are documented as collateral damage of conflict rather than welfare emergencies in their own right. Recovery programmes that treat livestock welfare as integral to community recovery rather than an afterthought produce better outcomes for both animals and the people who care for them.