Ship Carrying Cattle Sinks enRoute to UAE
A vessel carrying hundreds of cattle exported from Somalia to Saudi Arabia capsized off Oman coast on Saturday after being hit by stormy weather, according to reports from Arab media.
The owner of the ship is Emirati and from Ajman while the crewmen were Pakistanis. The UAE owned ship was reportedly carrying 350 cows before it capsized, reports Al Ittihad, the Arabic-language paper.
Witnesses said all of the cows and calves either swam to the shoreline themselves or were washed up by the current, reported The Times of Oman. All of the ship’s crew was saved but the ship was completely submerged within hours.
All crew have been rescued by Oman's rescue team; however, the ship submerged at depth into the water after rescue team failed to save it.
The vessel was carrying the first batch of cattle to be exported from the Mogadishu port after years of ban imposed by Saudi Arabia which suspected that Somali livestock carried the Rinderpest disease; barring cattle from entering into Saudi Arabia.
Saudi authorities subsequently banned livestock exports from the Horn of Africa nation. In 1998 and 1999, Saudi Arabia also banned Somali animals' entry into their country as a result of an RVF outbreak in Kenya and Somalia, with animal herders saw the volume of economic losses and livestock exports tumble.