JEDDAH: More than 100,000 Somali sheep arrived Monday at the Jeddah Islamic Port, part of efforts to cover the high demand for Adahi, sacrificial animals, during the Haj and Eid Al-Adha season. The sheep add to the 400,000 that have arrived in Jeddah and more than one million will be imported, said Sulaiman Al-Jabri, head of the Livestock Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a livestock importer. He expressed regret over increasing prices, up to SR2,000 for each animal, and said officials have worked to facilitate their importation. “The Ministry of Agriculture has already made it very easy to import sheep, especially from Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti, through the port in Jizan, in the southern part of the Kingdom,” he said. Increasing prices for sheep feed led the Saudi government to financially support its importers, which has helped keep prices at acceptable levels as demand has increased in a number of countries, Al-Jabri said. “The prices of sheep in the exporting countries have been increasing for years, especially after the increase of imports from neighboring countries,” he said. More than one million sheep, 750,000 from Somalia and 350,000 from Sudan, will be imported by the Al-Jabri Company, the main provider of the Saudi Project for Utilization of Sacrificial Animals, he added. Those imports will help settle prices, but there is a huge demand, Al-Jabri said. “Unfortunately, we do not have enough sheep and we consume a high number of them,” he said. Saudi Arabia imports 75 percent of its sheep and 60 percent of them come from Sudan and Somalia, he said. The Islamic Development Bank is the only bank responsible for the coupons of Adahi and transporting them to Islamic countries after the season of Haj.
