Kenyans unwittingly eat zebra, thinking it's beef

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
James Akedi's plate is piled with fragrant strips of nyama choma, the entree of choice in much of East Africa whose name means, quite simply, roasted meat. Akedi can only hope he's getting what he paid for: 1 kilogram of government-inspected, disease-free beef. Kenyan authorities say wild animals such as zebra and wildebeest are illegally slaughtered and passed off as beef - posing grave threats from diseases such as Ebola and anthrax linked to eating the flesh of infected animals. "I have always been cautious when going out to buy meat," Akedi said. "But you never know." Over the weekend, police recovered more than 200 kilograms of "bushmeat" in an unrefrigerated minibus traveling from a wildlife dispersal area outside Nairobi National Park, Kenya Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udoto said.