KHARTOUM —
An overladen ship crammed with thousands of sheep sank Sunday in
Sudan’s Red Sea
port of Suakin drowning most animals on board but with all crew surviving, port
officials said.
اضافة اعلان
The livestock
vessel was exporting the animals from Sudan to
Saudi Arabia when it sank after
several thousand more animals were loaded on board than it was meant to carry.
“The ship, Badr 1,
sank during the early hours of Sunday morning,” a senior Sudanese port official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was carrying 15,800 sheep, which
was beyond its load limits.” The official said the ship was supposed to carry
only 9,000 sheep.
Another official,
who said that all crew were rescued, raised concerns over the economic and
environmental impact of the accident. “The sunken ship will affect the port’s
operation,” the official said. “It will
also likely have an environmental impact due to the death of the large number
of animals carried by the ship”.
Omar Al-Khalifa,
the head of the national exporters’ association, said the ship took several
hours to sink at the pier — a window that meant it “could have been rescued”
The total value of
the lost livestock “is around 14 million Saudi riyals, the equivalent of four
million dollars,” said Saleh Selim, the head of the association’s livestock
division.
He said livestock owners recovered only around 700 sheep “but
they were found very ill, and we don’t expect them to live long.” Selim called for an investigation into the
incident.
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