Kabul, Afghanistan ? The Kabul zoo took delivery Wednesday of a precious Chinese gift two lions to replace Marjan, the one-eyed, defanged king of beasts who died earlier this year after surviving more than two decades of violence in the Afghan capital.

The new lions, part of a menagerie that also included two deer, two bears, two pigs and a wolf, were given by Beijing’s Badaling Safari world, trucked overland to Xinjiang province in western China and flown to Kabul in a giant Russian-made cargo jet.

China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Sun Yuxi, said the donation was “a gesture of peace” and that Chinese experts would teach Afghan zoo-keepers how to care for the newly arrived creatures.

“We hope this will give some pleasure for the people of Afghanistan, especially the children,” Sun said.

The zoo sits on a patch of land near an often-dry river bed in a section of Kabul that was devastated during the 1992-1996 civil war. The new arrivals join zoo survivors who lived through miserable years only to find themselves today in a sprawling complex of collapsed and bullet-spattered buildings and broken mostly empty and cobweb-covered cages.

“We used to come when I was a boy and you could spend all day here. All the cages were full,” said 18-year-old Pervez, who like many Afghans uses one name. “Now there’s nothing. It’s boring. We’re tired of looking at these same rabbits and monkeys.”

Sad remnants

A woman lifted her blue burqa to take a closer look at two monkeys, one nervously fingering a shredded cigarette package in its disheveled cage. Peanut shells littered the floor.

A lion in a cage is unloaded from a cargo plane in Kabul, Afghanistan, after arriving from China. The Badaling Zoo in Bejing donated two lions, two deer, two pigs and a wolf to the Kabul Zoo. The animals arrived Wednesday.

Nearby, a dozen black and white rabbits sat Sphinx-like in a dusty enclosure.

There were two ragged vultures, an owl with a sore under its left eye and a small black bear a festering wound on its nose and surrounded by a fetid moat.

“We need new animals desperately,” said Kabul Zoo director Sher Agha Omar. The Chinese zoo “promised us some birds, too; maybe they’ll be on the next flight.”

At its prewar best, the zoo housed a big variety of exotic creatures and had an aquarium packed with fish. But during the decade of Soviet occupation and the subsequent civil war, many animals died or starved to death.

The lone elephant was killed by shrapnel from a rocket.

The zoo’s most famous inhabitant, though, was Marjan. He died earlier this year estimated age 25 after gaining world renown through press reports about the sad last days of his life.

Marjan lost one eye in 1994 when he mauled a fighter from the civil war. The man’s brother took revenge the next day, hurling a grenade into Marjan’s cage. The beast lost most of his teeth as well as one eye in the blast.

Marjan lies in an unmarked grave near a green swamp. Zoo workers said his grave, covered with a small mound of broken concrete, would be reconstructed with a sign to pay tribute.

Building a new home

Press reports, after journalists flooded Kabul with the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime, produced international donations of more than a half-million dollars, but Omar said little had gotten through to the zoo. He said officials have seen nothing of a highly publicized gift from a group of American school children that was known to have reached the country.

Late Wednesday, the two lions 165-pound male, Zhuang Zhuang and 143-pound female, Kelly were lifted in green metal cages by a crane and lowered into a grassy pen surrounded by rocky walls.

Kelly emerged immediately to take a spot in the corner, while Zhuang Zhuang, whose name means “strong boy” in Mandarin, took 10 minutes come out. He sat down near a log.

Some international organizations and zoos overseas have said the bomb-blasted zoo is not ready to take in new occupants and care for them properly.

But Omar said the zoo has been ready for months. The London-based World Society for the Protection of Animals donated some money for electricity and a water pump and said it would help ensure the animals were fed, he said.

“What we really need is money for our staff. They haven’t been paid in months,” Omar said.