By Philip Mwakio
Mombasa, Kenya: A specialised walk-in walk-off vessel, MV Taiba is back at the Port of Mombasa to export camels to Tripoli, Libya.
Officials from a Mombasa based livestock trading company, Ayyat Livestock confirmed yesterday that 2,000 camels have been at the firm’s holding farm in Maungu, Taita Taveta County and are certified as fit for export.
In an exclusive interview with The Standard, a director with Ayyat Livestock, Mr Elias Ali said after the recent successful export to Egypt, the firm has secured a second export order to Libya and hopes to grow on this new market.
“We will, however, have to take a break for the next two or three months after this export since the ocean waters will be very rough and the vessel deployed cannot effectively manage to transit the ocean. We could only make do with much larger vessels which at the moment are fully booked elsewhere,” Ali said.
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With the export, Kenya joins the Republic of Ireland, which has been a net exporter of livestock (cattle) to Libya dating back to the 1960s.
Information available indicates that in February this year, Ireland resumed its cattle exports to Libya after a 17-year break partly due to the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encepalopathy disease popularly known as Mad cow disease in 1996 when Libya banned all cattle imports from Europe.
