JEDDAH, 14 April — In Al-San’iya industrial area, south of Jeddah, is an extraordinary sight by any standards.
Africans line the road, waving down cars with small, shiny metal bowls. When drivers pull over, they are led over a small ridge to have revealed to them below, on a patch of waste ground, a herd of about 50 camels.
Most of the camels are females who have recently given birth, and their young are competing with customers for the milk they are producing.
The customers themselves are mostly Saudis, among many of whom camel’s milk has achieved an almost mythical medicinal status.
They prize in particular its ability to “clear out the stomach” — seemingly unaware that the reason has more to do with the bacteria contained in the untreated milk than any medicinal qualities it may have.
Then there is the complication that the quality control that regulates mainstream medicine has no authority over the sale and distribution of this particular product when it comes straight from the camel’s teat.
For as well as the pasteurized camel’s milk found in the Kingdom’s supermarkets, the raw version is available from illegal immigrants who tend herds of neglected camels. They even ignore the basic rules of cleanliness: from their dirty hands to the stagnant water in which they wash their metal tubs that collect the spurting the white liquid.
Typically, the immigrants have to fight off the feeding young to get access to the teat, meaning that its saliva and all the bacteria it contains go into the milk as well.
Mohammed Bashir, a Sudanese I spoke to in Al-San’iya, has been selling camel’s milk for three years.
“I sell a pint for between SR10 to SR20,” he explained. “I have nearly 50 camels here. We try to keep the milk free of dust and other contamination.”
As I stood by, a Saudi appeared and asked for a bowl of milk, which he immediately drank.
Tariq Abdullah, head of Jeddah Southwest municipality, told Arab News that he is aware of the camel herds and the trade in their milk.
“We have ordered the camels and their owners out of the area more times than I can remember. However, they just turn up again in another place after a little while,” he said.
“We need the support of other government entities in order to bring about the complete removal of these animals from the area. In particular, the Passport Department should step in, as most of those selling the milk are illegal residents. And the health organizations in Jeddah should coordinate their efforts to tell the public how unsafe this product is. Only by working together can this problem be permanently solved.”
Back in Al-Sana’iya, Egyptian Jalal Ahmed told me that he comes once a week to buy camel’s milk “because it’s good for your health. It clears you right out, but it doesn’t cost very much.”
Mohammed Ali, a 41-year-old employee with the Ministry of Education who had bought four pints for his family, said he believes that the camel’s milk is good, but “the problem is that camels do not live like in the old days, when they used to wander free and graze on natural food.”
“That’s why the quality of the milk is lower when it comes from the camels living here compared to that you get from those living in the desert,” he continued. “But I don’t have time to go all the way out there, so this will have to do.”
