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Fujairah: A charitable food handout ended with marginal disappointment on Thursday, after supplies ran short.
People queued in their cars for the popular handout, which is organised through the Khalifa Bin Zayed Charity Foundation. As some food items did not arrive on time, a number of people were asked to return later.
Some men and women from Dibba and Tuwayeen, camped out in their cars nearby. Nearby restaurants were used by some of the donation-seekers and others were supplied with food by family members.
Rashid Obaid Saif, a Fujairah resident, said it was sad the organisation of the handout process did not match the generous charitable gesture.
"We all appreciate the generosity and effort of the foundation, but things could have been better organised."
Ahmad Rashid Khamis came from the small fishing village of Sharm, about 45 kilometres from Fujairah.
He said he arrived at 3am yesterday morning to find 40 cars already ahead of him.
Empty-handed
"There are many elderly men and women waiting for the donations here. Other people came on previous days and returned empty-handed because the food packages ran out, so people are coming early to guarantee their place," he said.
Mohammad Salim, who is in charge of the food distribution for the East Coast, told Gulf News the delay in distribution was due to a number of reasons, such as the holding up of food trucks by food safety inspectors and traffic delays out of Dubai.
"Trucks carrying rice arrived at 3pm in the afternoon and will take another two to three hours before they are unloaded and the flour trucks will not arrive until later in the evening so we had to tell people outside there will not be any handout of food today."
Already in three days, Salim says, over 1,200 people received their food packages out of the designated 7,068. Salim says a second distribution centre will open in Khor Fakkan, Sunday, to ease the pressure on Fujairah.
He added a number of alternative methods were proposed for next year to try and avoid a similar situation including handing out coupons valid at cooperative supermarkets.
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