The commander of the Metropolitan Police of Cartagena Wednesday pledged to capture the gang of youths who raided a small circus and raped its dancing donkey Paola.
Ringmaster Olascuaga Janner said that the thieves looted the Triumph Circus, taking everything and leaving the performers with nothing but their tent and the clothes on their backs, “as God brought us into this world.”
Describing himself as broken-hearted, Janner explained that the gang stole “amplification equipment, lights, costumes, money and even makeup,” reported newspaper El Universal.
“I am nothing. What is a clown without makeup? He is not a clown,” said circus director Isaias Acosta Montes. “Without music, we are not a circus,” he said from his perch on a trapeze, voice breaking.
Even more distressing than the material losses was the rape of the circus’s beloved donkey Paola, ‘the dancing donkey’.
Wilfrido Junco Castilla, a clown in the circus, stood by the dancing donkey. “They abused Paola like a woman,” he told Colombia’s Caracol news.
As the travelling circus was far from prosperous to begin with, Janner admitted that in order for his business to keep going, his entertainers will be forced to rely on support from the local Caribbean community to provide “an occasional change of clothes” as well as donations of food and a great deal of love and understanding until the circus gets back on its feet.
“To make children laugh we need people to help us,” he said.