March 14, 2007

Bahrain ends livestock trade on streets
 

After three years of negotiations between the municipality and vendors, the move of the livestock market from the eastern side of Madinah Expressway to Al Khomrah area in Bahrain, about 30 kilometres (km) south of downtown, has ended.

City workers, accompanied by police, dump trucks and bulldozers, began dismantling the hundreds of empty animal stalls in preparation for selling the land for real estate development.

Every now and then, a vendor and his employees scrambled to move out. In one stall, a group of men tried to dislodge a calf whose hoof got stuck in the space between the door and the bed of a large moving truck loaded with oxen.

Vendors opposed the move, saying the new market put them farther away from buyers. They also complained of the higher rents they would have to pay to the municipality.

Naser Al Jarallah, who oversees municipality's slaughterhouses at the market, said the cattle owners had met landlords of the new market and reached an agreement on the rent.

Musbih Al Hazmi, a middle-aged Saudi sheep vendor said he had not been told that his rent would be lower than previously announced. He said he was concerned his sales would be affected because customers might be less inclined to travel the extra distance to the new market.

He said the only people who would benefit from this shift besides the new market owner are small dealers who would buy cattle at regular price at the new market and sell for extra to butcheries.

On the other hand, Al Jarallah said some vendors were grateful for the new market as they had suffered from smell and traffic jams from peddling on the sidewalk.

Al Jarallah said the camel market in Abrug Al Rigama, 10km to the south of the evacuated market, would also move away from the city centre.