The deterioration of the currency ignites the prices of sacrificial animals
English - Sunday 25 June 2023 الساعة 05:51 pm
Lahj, NewsYemen, Muhyiddin Al-Subaihi:
Buying sacrificial animals is no longer an easy matter for many Yemeni families, in light of the economic collapse and the deterioration of the local currency, which eliminated many of the rituals that Yemenis used to accompany during the blessed Eid al-Adha.
The Eid sacrifice has become difficult and unattainable for many, and the heads of families are looking for alternatives to spend the Eid according to the possibilities available to them, according to what Hajj Fakhr Abdul Razzaq, a resident of the town of Al-Waziya in Taiz, said.
And he says: Citizens are dealing with hard currencies. When you go to the popular Al-Wazia market to learn about the prices of sacrificial animals, you need to hesitate for several days, because prices fluctuate and increase with the approach of Eid.
Sellers and livestock owners attribute the reasons for the increase in the prices of sacrificial animals to the escalating cost in various areas of life as a result of the collapse of the local currency, which negatively affected the sacrificial animals, since many families that own livestock mainly make their living from selling the sacrificial animals on the two Eids.
When you visit the sacrificial markets in the various liberated governorates, you find a great stagnation in the buying and selling process, and shoppers come only to know the prices and return empty-handed without buying because of the insane rise in prices.
Al-Mohammadi, a well-known livestock trader in the city of Mukalla, told NewsYemen: This year, movement has been very low since the start of the ten days of Dhul-Hijjah. In such days, the markets are crowded and the buying and selling process is escalating until the evening hours of the day of the night of Eid.
Al-Muhammadi defended the high prices of sacrificial animals by saying: We are heads of families, our only source of income is selling livestock, and the festive season is the only season for us, pointing out that the process of raising livestock costs them a lot of money, especially since they buy food from grain, animal hair and other suitable fodder for livestock in order to obtain Premium cattle and meat.
Returning to the citizen Hajj Fakhr, he explains that he went with some of his friends to the market and was surprised by the imaginary prices of sacrificial animals (sheep or goats), pointing out that there is no censor, and everyone is unable to pay the exchange rate of the Saudi riyal, which has risen recently, at a time when the citizen is looking for cheap things according to his energies and abilities.
In the governorate of Aden, Ahmed al-Qadri shares with his brother the purchase of the Eid sacrifice, because his salary in the education sector does not cover his monthly household needs, so how about the sacrifices that exceed the value of his salary?
He added, “My brother and I participated in the purchase of a sheep sacrifice for an amount of about 150,000 riyals.”
According to Al-Qadri, there are families in Aden who live in miserable conditions and cannot afford to buy sacrificial animals, and families suffice with buying one to two kilos to touch that Eid joy.
And he continued his speech: What exacerbates the suffering also is the power outage and weakness, and the inability to store meat in refrigerators, and this is also one of the factors that do not push some people to pay the cost of buying sacrificial animals in light of the difficult conditions that the city is going through.
The Agricultural Statistics Department of the Yemeni Ministry of Agriculture believes that Yemen annually produces 186,000 tons of meat. However, this amount of locally produced meat does not cover the local consumer demand, which created a food gap that is filled by importing frozen and live meat and its derivatives to meet the needs of the local market.
According to the Agricultural Statistics Book, the livestock in Yemen amounts to 21 million heads, including 9.6 million heads of sheep, 9.3 million heads of goats, 1.7 million heads of cows, and 454 thousand heads of camels.
For its part, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that Yemen consumes 370,000 tons of meat and ranks 13th in the Arab world and 138th globally in meat consumption, at an average of 16 kilograms per capita annual consumption of total meat consumption, but with the deterioration of the living conditions left by the war, Yemenis’ consumption of meat, which was estimated Previously, it amounted to $200 million annually.
In Sana'a Governorate, teacher Ali Ghanem is waiting for a tribute from some charities that distribute sacrifices on this occasion. Where Ghanem hopes to obtain this support for his family members, since his salary has been out for more than 6 years, and he has no other source of livelihood.
He pointed out that he works in freelance work that does not help him buy the Eid sacrifice, not to mention the needs of children to provide Eid clothes, which also rose insanely under the pretext of the high exchange rate and that the purchase is made in hard currency and the price is not stable and fluctuating, which turned into a reverse and its consequences were borne by the prevailing citizen.
The situation in Sana'a is no different from the rest of the unliberated governorates controlled by the Houthi militia. Everyone shares that their salaries are not paid by the militia, which plundered state revenues and deprived employees of their most basic rights. In addition to the royalties and levies imposed on livestock traders, which negatively affected the high prices in the market.
In Hadhramout, eastern Yemen, because the authorities prevented raising livestock in cities, as Muhammad Baroud says, many families were forced to sell their livestock for fear of being subjected to legal procedures in residential neighborhoods within the city of Mukalla, and the process of raising livestock was limited to its outskirts and out of sight.
He explained that there are few families who raise livestock, and this has made many families bear the exorbitant purchase costs that exceed the capabilities of the population.
He indicated, in his speech, that during the past year he bought the sacrifice of the previous Eid in installments through an institution, where he pays the total value in stages, which is the method preferred by the majority of those who sacrifice in Hadramout due to the difficulty of purchasing in light of the current conditions of the country until the moment.
