The Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, held every year in a small town in the largely rural and poor Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, sees thousands of canines butchered and eaten. The controversial event, which opened on June 21, is ostensibly held to mark the summer solstice.

Locals say that eating dog meat is no different from pork and is traditional during the summertime. But animal rights activists claim the festival has no cultural value and was merely created to boost business.

Criticism is mounting against the mass slaughter of dogs. "We came to Yulin to tell people that dogs are our friends," says Yang Yuhua, an animal rights activist. "We cannot cruelly kill them." According to a poll, two thirds of Chinese demand an end to the dog meat festival. Here, animal rights activists protest against the Yulin festival in front of the Chinese embassy in Los Angeles.

Activists sometimes buy dogs to save them from the cooking pots. In 2015, dog lover Yang Xiaoyun traveled from her hometown, Tianjin, in northern China to Yulin and spent about 7,000 yuan (944 euros) buying up 100 dogs at a market to save them. Here, dogs purchased by activists to rescue them from dog meat dealers, are kept in a temporary shelter.

In 2015, the Yulin government distanced itself from the festival and announced new restrictions. Traders would no longer be permitted to slaughter dogs in public, place carcasses on display or serve meals outdoors, it said. But there is no law against eating dog meat in China. Here, vendors sell dog meat at a market.

As many as 10 million dogs are believed to be killed for their meat annually in China, with up to 10,000 killed for the Yulin festival, according to the Washington-based Humane Society. While much of the meat comes through legitimate farms, many dog slaughterhouses are run privately and secretively to avoid scrutiny by food-safety inspectors.

Li Yongwei, a Yulin resident, told the AFP news agency that dog was the same as any other meat. "You shouldn't force people to make choices they don't want to make, the way you wouldn't force someone to be a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim," he said. "The festival will go on. Young people, old people, even babies are all eating dog meat. It's tradition," said another resident.

Dog meat remains a popular dish in other Asian countries such as Vietnam where it is considered to be an aphrodisiac. Over the past few years, an illegal dog meat trade has flourished across Asia worth millions of dollars, which critics say is unnecessarily cruel and carries a rising risk to public health. According to estimates, 30 million dogs are eaten every year across Asia.