UAE | General
The long wait to cross the border
Slow clearance by Saudi customs tests truckers' patience as they wait for days
- By Mick O'Reilly, Deputy Managing Editor, Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 November 18, 2009
Al Ghuwaifat: From the minaret of the mosque at the edge of this strip on asphalt, the view is of columns of trucks, ten rows wide and 50 rigs long, a temporary haven to those who wait for days to cross into Saudi Arabia.
The truckers' salvations lies in the fact that the sun high in the sky is only registering 30°C on the thermometer - on these truckers' collective odometer, all have travelled zero kilometres this day.
Mohammad Jolan Mustafa from Bangladesh left Dubai on Monday night with a truckload of flour to Doha. Normally the round trip would take three days. He hasn't moved an inch since joining the queue around 4.30 yesterday morning.
Round trip
"Four days," he says. That's how long he expects to sit and wait before being allowed to cross into Saudi territory. If he's lucky, the round trip this time will take eight days. He's paid Dh200 for the three-day trip. He'll still be paid Dh200 for the trip - no matter how long it takes. But at least his load won't go off sitting in this temporary truck town. Mohammad Tajuddin isn't as lucky. From three trucks away you can tell he's carrying onions. And lots of them. Slowly baking in the sun.
"No food, no water, no information," he says. "Nothing." He's been waiting for two days so far. It could be another two days before he crosses at Al Ghuwaifat.
Like most of these truckers, Mohammad Afzal has been here before for days on end. In June, he waited for six days in sweltering summer heat to be processed by Saudi customs authorities. And like most of these truckers who ply this only route between the UAE and the rest of the GCC economies, his fingerprints and security details are on file with the Saudi authorities.
He's hauling a load of ceramic tiles from Ras Al Khaimah to Jeddah. From Delhi, he's spending the long hours waiting to cross chatting with three other drivers, one of whom is his brother, Mohammad Iqbal. For the past four years, Afzal has been driving a truck, for Dh200 a trip, supporting his wife and two children, giving them a better life.
Is it worth it? "Not now," he says. His friend, Jaafar Akbarali disagrees. He's 45 and has more miles travelled behind the wheel of trucks for the last 24 years than he cares to remember. He spent the first ten years pounding the roads of India. His trucking has kept him away from his three children as they grow up, but he's been able to pay for their upkeep and education, proudly showing off their photographs of moments snapped during birthdays and graduation.
They're waiting for him to come home.
In Dammam, a Saudi customer driving a Kia is also waiting - for a spare part that's been stuck on the back of Khushnad Ahmad's rig. He left Jebel Ali two days ago and hasn't made much progress toward Dammam since then. From Islamabad in Pakistan, Ahmad is patiently waiting this delay out. "It's beyond anything I can do, other than just sit here and wait."
Have you been affected by this? Why do you think this keeps recurring? What is the solution?
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