Gadhimai: Nepal's mass animal slaughter begins despite outcry

Hindu worshippers have begun slaughtering thousands of buffalo as part of a religious ritual held every five years in southern Nepal, despite efforts to end the practice considered the world's biggest sacrifice of animals at any one site.

The Gadhimai Festival - a two-day festival in honour of the Hindu goddess of power - kicked off in the early hours of Tuesday amid tight security, with the ceremonial slaughter of a goat, rat, chicken, pig and pigeon. A local shaman then offered blood from five points of his body.