Hiiraan Online
Sunday, June 14, 2015
BOSSASO (HOL)---A fire broke out on the deck of a commercial boat which was ferrying livestock from Puntland, a semiautonomous region in northern Somalia to Gulf countries with six crew members. were rescued by regional marine forces, officials said on Sunday.
The boat has reportedly developed into mechanical failure in an area few miles away from the port city of Bossaso, leading to an inferno which burned all the 1000 livestock on the boat before the boat sank. All six crew members were rescued by regional marine forces, officials said on Sunday.
Abdullahi Jama, Puntland’s ports minister told reporters that that the region’s emergency fire brigade have failed to extinguish the fire as the result of meadows on the boat which fuelled the fire beyond the limit.
The country of which the boat was heading to hasn’t so far been identified, however, Saudi Arabia remains the biggest market for Somali livestock industry with millions of animals are exported to
kingdom every year.
Saudi Arabia has recently lifted a ban it imposed on the Somali livestock, suspecting it carried the Rinderpest disease.
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 suffered serious economic losses as the livestock
exports tumbled for years.