Photo: The Canadian Press

An animal welfare group says dozens of dogs rescued from a dog meat farm in South Korea have arrived in Canada.

Humane Society International's Canadian branch says 50 dogs have arrived in the last five days and are bound for shelters and rescue groups in Ontario and Quebec.

The organization says another 120 or so dogs are headed to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Rebecca Aldworth, the group's executive director, says many of the animals rescued from the facility in Namyangju had open sores and were severely emaciated due to malnutrition.

Humane Society International, which has been campaigning to end the dog meat trade, says an estimated 2.5 million dogs are killed for meat each year in South Korea.

The group says the Namyangju dog meat farm, which has now shut down, was one of roughly 17,000 such facilities in South Korea.

"This horrific dog meat farm is one of the worst HSI has ever seen and I am thrilled we are shutting it down for good," Aldworth said.

"More than 170 dogs and puppies were intensively confined in cramped, filthy, barren wire cages positioned over months of accumulated waste. The dogs had no protection from the freezing temperatures," she said.

"These dogs have been spared a lifetime of misery and a brutal death at the hands of the dog meat trade."