A ship has sunk carrying 15,000 sheep as thousands of livestock drowned in the disaster.
Thousands of sheep drowned on Sunday in Sudan’s Red Sea port of Suakin with all crew surviving, officials said.
The livestock vessel was heading from Sudan’s port of Suakin to Saudi Arabia when it ran it sank.
“The ship, Badr 1, sank during the early hours of Sunday morning,” a senior Sudanese port official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He continued: “It was carrying 15,800 sheep, which was beyond its load limits.”
Another official said all crew were rescued but they raised concerns over the economic and environmental impact of the accident.
They said: “The sunken ship will affect the port’s operation. It will also likely have an environmental impact due to the death of the large number of animals carried by the ship”.
The total value of the dead livestock was around 14 Saudi riyals (£3million), said Saleh Selim, the head of the association’s livestock division, who has called for an urgent investigation into the incident.
He said of the total aboard, around 700 sheep were rescued but found very ill and he doesn’t “expect them to live long”.
He said the sheep were loaded onto the vessel at Suakin port, the historic port town which was once the main foreign trade hub.
This will be the second investigation into the port in just a month, as a large fire broke out in the cargo area of the port last month, lasting hours and causing heavy damage.
The port was due to be redeveloped, but a 2017 deal with Turkey to restore historic buildings and expand the docks was suspended after the ousting of longtime President Omar al-Bashir.
Men seach for sheep after the ship sank in Sudan’s Red Sea (
AFP via Getty Images)
Omar al-Khalifa, the head of the national exporters’ association, said the ship took several hours to sink at the pier, suggesting that in that time it “could have been rescued”.
Sudan has been gripped by a chronic economic crisis, which has deepened following last year’s military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
There was a military takeover in October which dealt a blow to the country’s democratic transition and plunged the nation into turmoil.
Discussion about this post