UAE | General

Shopkeepers wait to assess damage after fire in Deira

Scores of shopkeepers are waiting to enter and assess damage to their shops in the gutted Naif Souq.

  • By Mahmood Saberi, Senior Reporter
  • Published: 00:44 April 4, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Shopkeepers in the Naif Souq try to salvage some of their goods after Wednesday's fire which destroyed 184 shops in the 25-year-old souq.
  • Image Credit: Arshad Ali/Gulf News

Dubai: Scores of shopkeepers clutching brightly coloured plastic folders waited impatiently on Thursday for police permission to enter and assess the damage to their shops in the gutted Naif Souq.

The block-long souq in Deira has been cordoned off by the police and they are allowing only those who have brought their trade licences and copies of their passports to enter the soot-blackened market area.

Only a few shops on the outer perimeter of the souq were spared. The fire gutted the market in the early hours of Wednesday. At one of the shops a group of men were seen packing black abayas and children's clothes into plastic bags.

Four open safes were seen in an alley nearby. Abu Bakr, one shopkeeper, said some Pakistani merchants lost hundreds of thousands of dirhams as the fire ravaged the safes. "Many passports have been burnt," he said.

Near one of the safes was a burnt chequebook. The last cheque issued was to one Rahman for Dh40.

Mustafa, an owner of a shop, said some salesmen had lost their passports in the blaze. "They had recently returned from their holidays and didn't give me their passports for safekeeping," he said.

A security guard at Al Manal Centre, just across the Souq, said his colleague who worked the graveyard shift, called 997 when he saw flames leaping from the souq.

"We want a place to set up our business again," said Faisal Valiqath from Kerala. He owned shop number 36 which is now just a maze of burnt-out steel wires. He did business here for the past 32 years.

None of the shopkeepers had insured their businesses and the total loss is estimated at Dh2 million. There were about 200 shops in the marketplace.

Naif Souq is one of Dubai's tourist spots and was earlier known as the Camel Market, as camels used to be traded here many years ago.

Police said it was too early to say what caused the fire. The souq was rebuilt to look like a fort and is situated behind the Naif police station.

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