In June 2026 a livestock carrier called the MSV Haji Ali sank off the coast of Oman. On board were around 4,000 sheep and goats being shipped from Somalia to the Middle East. All fourteen crew were rescued. The animals were not.

The specific cause was an attack — the ship’s automatic identification system had been switched off, and the resulting fire brought the vessel down. But animal welfare organisations pointed to something older and quieter than the immediate incident: the trade itself, which loads millions of live animals onto ships every year for journeys that regularly go wrong.

What the trade looks like

Somalia alone exports between four and six million head of livestock a year, mostly to the Arabian Peninsula, generating over a billion dollars. The EU exports millions of cattle, sheep and goats to third countries by road and sea. Australia was among the largest exporters until it began phasing the trade out. Trade to the Middle East peaks in May, before the Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice.

The animals travel in tiered pens with limited ventilation, standing in their own waste for journeys that can last weeks. In summer, temperatures below deck rise well above what the species can tolerate. Sick animals are often not treated. The Australian regulator recorded a case in 2018 in which 2,400 sheep died on a single voyage — one of the events that eventually forced the country’s policy shift.

Where the bans have happened

Australia passed legislation in 2023 to end live sheep export by sea, with the phase-out completing by May 2028. The industry fought hard against it; the government proceeded anyway.

The United Kingdom passed the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024, prohibiting the export of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and horses for slaughter and fattening. It applies to Great Britain, not Northern Ireland, and does not cover breeding or competition journeys — a partial ban, not a total one.

Germany in 2023 stopped issuing the veterinary certificates without which live exports to third countries cannot proceed. The Netherlands has partial restrictions. Some other EU member states now ban live exports during the hottest summer months.

Why the EU still hasn’t

The EU’s own Court of Justice ruled in 2015 that its Animal Welfare Transport Regulation applies to animals until they reach their final destination — even outside EU territory. In practice, inspection stops at the border, and legally permitted transport times are routinely exceeded.

In 2026 more than 130 charities, along with public figures including Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Zoë Wanamaker and Joanna Lumley, wrote to the World Organisation for Animal Health calling for an end to the trade. A separate petition asked the European Commission to suspend live exports to war zones in the Middle East. The Commission responded that current EU law does not allow it to suspend exports in general — and asked member states to help exporters obtain replacement certificates when routes became difficult.

That is the shape of the argument. National governments end the trade one by one, sometimes only in the summer, sometimes only for slaughter. The bloc that legislates on behalf of most of them says the law does not let it stop.

What campaigners actually want

The alternative is not more humane transport but different transport. Animals killed close to where they were raised, with meat and carcasses shipped instead of live bodies, remove almost every category of welfare risk associated with these journeys — heat, overcrowding, sickness, and being lost at sea when a ship catches fire off Oman.

The industry’s counter is that some destination countries require live animals for religious slaughter, that meat exports would concentrate value away from producing regions, and that welfare on modern carriers has improved. Each of those points is at least partly true. None of them explains 4,000 animals drowning off the coast of Oman.

Sources

World Animal Protection, Eurogroup for Animals, Compassion in World Farming, Animal Welfare Foundation and Welfarm; the UK Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024; Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; EU Court of Justice ruling of 23 April 2015; contemporaneous reporting on the MSV Haji Ali incident.