UAE | General
Truck drivers endure hardship at UAE-Saudi border
Men say the nearest cafeteria is five kilometres away and It is too hot to walk.
- By Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:16 June 10, 2009
- Truck drivers are facing delays when trying to cross the Ghuwaifat border.
- Image Credit: Ahmed ramzan/Gulf News
Al Ghuwaifat: The line of trucks snakes for 24 kilometres, and every five minutes another arrives. The queue only gets longer. The wait will be long, several hours long.
One truck driver arrived at Al Sila at 2am. Sixteen hours later he had moved two kilometres. The temperature was rising faster than his vehicle was moving.
This has been the situation for almost a month. Truck drivers carrying goods from the UAE to neighbouring countries are facing endless delays on the Al Ghuwaifat border when entering Saudi Arabia.
Truck drivers say the delays are because they are being fingerprinted, but this could not be independently confirmed with UAE or Saudi authorities.
Irfan, an Indian, is transporting wheat flour from Dubai to Qatar.
"I have been waiting in the queue for two hours. Saudi auth-orities are now fingerprinting drivers. We were not fingerprinted earlier. We would complete procedures and cross the border in one minute. Now, it's taking an average of seven minutes per driver."
He said there were about 1,000 trucks waiting to cross the border. "Forty trucks stretch across a kilometre. Multiply that by 20," Irfan said.
He has been cooking in his truck, but fears provisions will run out. He has enough supplies for two days and a cooler to keep water cold.
"The nearest cafeteria is five kilometres away. We can't take our trucks there. It is too hot to walk. We wait for trucks coming into the UAE to bring us some food."
Ghulam, from Rajasthan, India, is transporting edible oil from the UAE to Dammam in Saudi Arabia. "It was a three-day drive before. Now I have no idea when I will arrive," he said
Like Ghulam, Aslam, another Indian truck driver, who is carrying marble from the UAE to Bahrain, said he could previously reach his destination in three days.
"This journey doesn't seem to have an end," he lamented. "This is a risky business. We never drive alone - always in groups. The route is desolate, if you get stranded, it can get dangerous."
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