Wednesday, Jan 11, 2006
Dubai: Hundreds of Dubai residents sweated it out in three-hour queues to sacrifice sheep, goats and cows at crowded abattoirs yesterday.
By early afternoon, more than 2,000 goats, sheep, cows and camels had been slaughtered to celebrate Eid Al Adha. The festival is to commemorate the Prophet Ebrahim's vow to sacrifice his son Esmail on God's command. As a reward for keeping faith, God allowed him to sacrifice a sheep instead.
Dubai residents sat in cars in two lines stretching back kilometres to enter the abattoir, their goats and sheep bundled in the boot.
"I've been here for more than three hours. I'm worried about the goat I've purchased, because it might faint or even die in this heat," one Sudanese man said.
Residential apartments
"The abattoir should have more gates," an Indian man said.
Sheep and goats were slaughtered outside residential apartments in Dubai yesterday, with many unwilling to wait for hours in long lines at the abattoirs. In one building at Al Qusais, a group of men said they had slaughtered eight goats and sheep.
"We don't want to cause offence to anybody, we'll clean up afterwards. But there is a very long line to wait for the abattoir it's not enough for all of us," one of the men said.
The men said the municipality had to provide more places to slaughter sheep.
"We wait for hours at the abattoir, we miss the Eid prayer, we do not see our families and in the abattoir, we are not sure if they say bismillah [in the name of God] before they butcher the sheep," the men said.
Thousands more residents slaughtered at home, judging from the groups of freelance butchers standing outside the abattoir, offering special home rates.
Ahmad Al Shammari, head of the Abattoirs Department at Dubai Municipality, agreed residents needed more places to slaughter their animals, with abattoirs in Bur Dubai and Al Qusais already at full capacity.
"The abattoir can do 200 sheep an hour, on a normal day the maximum is 160 sheep an hour. That's why we don't have more gates, we can't absorb any more."
He said in two years, the municipality expected to complete a new abattoir in Khawaneej. Al Shammari said he was sure thousands of residents were still slaughtering their animals at home.
"We believe only 5 per cent of UAE nationals actually take their animals to be slaughtered here."
He cautioned against fining people who slaughtered at home.
"Right now we are so crowded there isn't any choice. I don't think it's healthy to slaughter animals in residential areas but what else can people do?"
Needy to benefit
A charitable organisation expects to distribute the meat of 500 sheep to thousands of needy families in the northern emirates over Eid.
Mohammad Khudur, head of the assistance section at Human Appeal International, said donors had paid Dh350 each for a sheep.
"We'll slaughter about 500 sheep here and distribute the meat to needy families."
Ahmad Al Shammari, head of the Abattoirs Department at Dubai Municipality, said he expected more than 4,000 sheep to be slaughtered every day for charitable distribution.
Khudur said there were about 1,500 to 2,000 families in Dubai, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah whom they helped.
Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.
