Between five and 10 people are caught every day trying to smuggle themselves over the UAE-Saudi Arabia border, say customs officers.
In a bid to stop them, the border patrol guards use state of the art laser technology to detect stowaways who often hide inside lorries in an attempt to cross without a passport.
"Many times the truck drivers don't even realise they have someone hiding in their truck," said one Emirati customs official.
About 50,000 lorries pass through the Al Ghuweifat border every month, an area notorious for its backlogs.
Thousands of lorries and their drivers are currently stuck at the border. They might face almost a week or more of waiting before they are granted permission to enter Saudi Arabia.
At 3pm on Wednesday, an estimated 4,000 lorries formed a queue that stretched 15 kilometres towards Abu Dhabi on the Al Ghuweifat-Sila motorway.
Another 7,000 lorries were packed into one of six lorry lots on both sides of the border, waiting for their turn to complete Saudi customs procedures.
It was taking six days for the drivers on the UAE side of the Al Ghuweifat border to snake their way across the windblown desert to reach the front of the line - a process that should only take one day.
Once through, they would have at least another day of waiting in the 5km area of "no-man's land" between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where they would have to sit in a lot that holds 2,000 lorries .
According to customs officials, the backlog has been caused by building on the Saudi side to expand the parking area.
"When the construction stops, all these trucks will disappear."
The drivers, mainly from South Asia, were frustrated.
Many of them voiced their concerns about the lack of toilets and dwindling supplies of food and water.
The Al Ghuweifat mosque has four toilets, and a few more can be found in the handful of small eateries at the border - about eight in total for thousands of men.
An Indian driver, Iqbal Ali, who was almost at the front of the queue after waiting for six days, said it was "a big problem".
"There are not enough toilets for all of us," said Mr Ali, who was being paid Dh2,500 to transport his cargo of windows from Dubai to Riyadh.
When shouts were heard that the line had started moving, the drivers leapt into their lorries; the deafening chorus of revving engines carried down the mass of vehicles like falling dominoes.
"Six days of no washing," shouted Mr Ali as he rushed to his lorry before driving off. Only 500 metres down the road, he had to stop and turn off the engine. The waiting started all over again.
Some of the drivers were worried about their diesel tanks running dry as they again started up their massive lorries' engines to inch a little closer to the border.
Jahangi Alom, a Bangladeshi driver, arrived on Tuesday evening from Dubai with a load of lentils destined for Qatar.
He had a little gas cooker under his lorry where a pot of fish curry was slowly cooking to be ready for lunch time.
Mr Alom, who makes Dh400 per trip, said he was worried about running out of provisions.
"My water will be finished after two or three days, and the gas to cook my food is almost gone," he said. He pulled out a bag of dry crackers that he had brought with him from his home, Dhaka. It would be his only source of food before long.
The wait ahead would be gruelling, and Mr Alom knew he would be forced to ask other drivers for help when his supplies ran out. At this rate it would take him six days to reach Qatar, compared with the 10 hours it normally took.
The Punjabi driver, Manjit Singh, arrived in the queue at 6am on Wednesday with a cargo of ceramic floor tiles en route from Dubai to Damman.
"It's been like this for the past two months, so I'm very well-prepared," he said.
He owns his lorry and takes it across the border three times a month, making Dh2,200 per trip - of which Dh400 is spent on fuel and food.
He said he is used to the Saudi border being slow, but this time was "the worst" he has seen it.
The biggest problem, said Mr Singh, was when drivers jumped the queue.
"Some people are overtaking us with full loads and there is no police to stop them; we are very angry."
According to customs officials, lorries that skipped the queue were caught when they reached the border and sent all the way to the back of the line.
However, some lorries were allowed to drive straight to the front, including those carrying fresh goods like fruits and dairy products.
Empty vehicles returning to Saudi, busses with passengers and couriers, like FedEx and DHL, are also allowed to beat the queue.
Two new lorries were arriving every minute at the back of the queue, which was gradually getting shorter. At 8am on Wednesday it stretched 30km. By 1pm it was less than half that length.
According to the customs official, this backlog "is nothing". Six weeks ago there was a 70km backlog when the construction in Saudi Arabia had started, with lorries filing up two of the motorway's three lanes.
When the computer system that Saudi customs use to log the lorries crashed two weeks ago, the backlog grew even bigger.
According to lorry drivers, the Saudi border patrol officers are also notorious for disappearing from their posts for long periods of time - sometimes up to six hours - whereas the UAE side operates around the clock.
The worst backlog occurred in June 2009 when a Saudi computer system crash forced more than 6,000 lorries to wait for days in the baking summer heat.
Workers from the UAE Red Crescent Authority were dispatched at the time to distribute food and water, as well as handling diesel shortages.
The shrinking number of lorries gave the drivers hope that this would not be necessary this time around. But whether or not the queue will ever disappear completely, is another story.
molson@thenational.ae
India team for Sri Lanka series
Test squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Priyank Panchal, Mayank Agarwal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Shubhman Gill, Rishabh Pant (wk), KS Bharath (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Sourabh Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah.
T20 squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Surya Kumar Yadav, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Chahar, Deepak Hooda, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Avesh Khan
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
How to donate
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
Facebook | Our website | Instagram
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Uefa Nations League: How it Works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
Frida%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ECarla%20Gutierrez%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Frida%20Kahlo%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
JAPAN SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Masaaki Higashiguchi, Shuichi Gonda, Daniel Schmidt
Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo, Tomoaki Makino, Maya Yoshida, Sho Sasaki, Hiroki Sakai, Sei Muroya, Genta Miura, Takehiro Tomiyasu
Midfielders: Toshihiro Aoyama, Genki Haraguchi, Gaku Shibasaki, Wataru Endo, Junya Ito, Shoya Nakajima, Takumi Minamino, Hidemasa Morita, Ritsu Doan
Forwards: Yuya Osako, Takuma Asano, Koya Kitagawa
If you go
The flights Etihad (www.etihad.com) and Spice Jet (www.spicejet.com) fly direct from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Pune respectively from Dh1,000 return including taxes. Pune airport is 90 minutes away by road.
The hotels A stay at Atmantan Wellness Resort (www.atmantan.com) costs from Rs24,000 (Dh1,235) per night, including taxes, consultations, meals and a treatment package.
FROM%20THE%20ASHES
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Khalid%20Fahad%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Shaima%20Al%20Tayeb%2C%20Wafa%20Muhamad%2C%20Hamss%20Bandar%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Company profile
Name: Back to Games and Boardgame Space
Started: Back to Games (2015); Boardgame Space (Mark Azzam became co-founder in 2017)
Founder: Back to Games (Mr Azzam); Boardgame Space (Mr Azzam and Feras Al Bastaki)
Based: Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Industry: Back to Games (retail); Boardgame Space (wholesale and distribution)
Funding: Back to Games: self-funded by Mr Azzam with Dh1.3 million; Mr Azzam invested Dh250,000 in Boardgame Space
Growth: Back to Games: from 300 products in 2015 to 7,000 in 2019; Boardgame Space: from 34 games in 2017 to 3,500 in 2019
more from Janine di Giovanni
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
MATCH INFO
World Cup qualifier
Thailand 2 (Dangda 26', Panya 51')
UAE 1 (Mabkhout 45 2')
Off-roading in the UAE: How to checklist
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Sonchiriya
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Producer: RSVP Movies, Azure Entertainment
Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Manoj Bajpayee, Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar, Ranvir Shorey
Rating: 3/5
