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A shocking video has emerged of stray dogs being abused ahead of their execution in Azerbaijan, British outlet The Independent reports.

According to the article, the footage, published by Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, was shot by animal rights campaigner Yelena Simakina in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, which will host the European Games in less than 100 days. The campaigner claims that authorities are shooting larger dogs on the streets of Baku and killing the smaller ones with shovels to save the bullets.

According to the article, the footage appears to show a large concrete courtyard. There is blood on the ground and in one corner there is an open fire, in which the bodies of what appear to be dead dogs are burning. Two dogs are also seen in the footage, and Simakina save them taking out of the courtyard.

The outlet reminds that similar footage of Baku authorities appearing to mistreat animals has emerged in the past. In 2013 a video purportedly showed men dragging dogs into the back of a van, clearly marked in Azeri with ‘Baku Executive Authority,’ and killing the canine in front of children. In 2012 the authorities killed saw stray dogs to smarten up the city ahead of Eurovision, the author writes.

The site Current Time has also turned to the topic. As the article has it, Azerbaijan is going to spend more than 4 billions of dollars on the first in history European Games, according to some estimates. Meanwhile, human rights defenders go on criticizing Baku for violating human rights and point out to the political prisoners in the country.

“While the authorities are traditionally denying criticism, they set on gloss Baku using all the methods for that. For example, cases of mass liquidation of homeless dogs are fixed: the dogs are directly burnt in specially created crematories,” the author writes.

According to the article, the veterinarians claim that there are around a million homeless animals in Azerbaijan. The animals caught are killed and burnt; sometimes they are shot right in the streets. The initiative groups of shelter owners suggest sterilizing animals to cut off their quantity; yet without government support they can do that only in private clinics where the procedure costs around 100 dollars for one animal. As a result, the dogs and the cats breed quicker than they are caught.

Related: Azerbaijani media: Real “genocide” of stray dogs in Baku ahead of European Games