A cat named Biso has been freed after spending five years of its life being holed up in a wall at a Cairo station, local media reported this week.

The tragic story started when Biso had squeezed into the hole at the Mohamed Naguib metro station as a kitten in 2010 but was unable to escape as it became too big too soon.

Thanks to an elderly man named by local media as “Uncle Abdo,” Biso received portions of food and water on a daily basis.

Abdo said workers had tried to rescue Biso years ago, but the scared feline stayed behind the wall.

“Biso used to enter and exit the hole freely for four months, but one day he got stuck,” Abdo told CBC Egypt in an interview. “I did not leave Biso behind as I was scared he would die,” he added.

Abdo visited Biso during the revolution in Egypt in 2011, when most stores, including his own, were closed.

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However, a social media campaign re-energized the drive to free Biso, and it was successful.

Mounira Shehata, an animal rights activist, and fellow activists Marwa Elgebaly and Rania el-Kordy all decided to save Biso on March 12 after a Facebook picture showing Biso’s suffering caught their attention.

The trio told the head of Mohamed Naguib metro station, in downtown Cairo, of the prosecution order to rescue Biso.

Shehata told Cairo Post that the smell when the wall was removed was “heinous.”

“It was like a tomb. There were black worms along four meters of the edge, where Uncle Abdo was able to put in food for Biso,” she said.

But Biso, feeling terrified, could not emerge from the hole right away only after one worker, named Amr, went inside to bring him out.

The mission took more than five hours.

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:47 - GMT 06:47