Cats caught up in Beirut explosion are rescued by American cat café

Rescue cats from Lebanon
(Image credit: Instagram @sipandpurrmke)

Sip & Purr Cat Café in Wisconsin has created a scholarship program to bring injured and homeless cats to America where they can be added to their already world-famous cat adoption scheme, and there are already some adorable felines which are ready to make the the trip:

A post shared by Sip & Purr Cat Cafe (@sipandpurrmke)

A photo posted by on on Oct 8, 2020 at 2:48pm PDT

It is the only cat café in America that routinely accepts international at-risk cats into its adoption program, and after an outpouring of requests from worried cat lovers it took up the challenge to help cats made homeless due to an explosion which rocked Lebanon in early August.

As the café explains on its Instagram page: “Sip & Purr’s Scholarship program will sponsor the flight costs for the cats we rescue to travel from Beirut to Chicago. Thank you to everyone who has donated! YOU are literally giving these cats a brand-new lease on life.

“Unfortunately, with the declining economic situation, COVID, and the explosion, folks in Lebanon just aren’t adopting cats right now.”

Working with animal welfare group Animals Lebanon the program helps cats that would otherwise be euthanized to be made ready for international travel. This means each cat will be spayed/neutered, microchipped, vaccinated, tested for FIV/FeLV, de-wormed, de-flead, will undergo a vet check and be issued a health certificate prior to travel.

A post shared by Sip & Purr Cat Cafe (@sipandpurrmke)

A photo posted by on on Oct 13, 2020 at 1:10pm PDT

We applaud this cat-loving café’s efforts, both for helping out vulnerable felines in Lebanon and for the hundreds of cats they’ve already helped to find new homes for from across Wisconsin, Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar. We can only mirror Sip & Purrs’ plea to do what you can to help out:

“Please consider sponsoring a Scholarship cat. Your donation will directly go towards the flight costs and care of the cats we rescue from Beirut.”

Jamie Middleton

Jamie Middleton is a freelance editor and writer who has been editing and creating content for magazines and websites for over 20 years. As well as writing about the pets he loves, he has helped create websites about tech and innovation like TechRadar.com, Innovate UK and TechSPARK, written programmes for music festivals, books on inventions and architecture, TV listings magazines, and edited publications about cars such as Lexus, Toyota and Jaguar. In his spare time he writes fiction books and poetry - or at least he does when he is permitted to by his cat Pirate, who enjoys the warmth of laptops too much to allow being creative to get in the way.