# Berbera's livestock quarantine companies

> The companies that run the livestock quarantine stations at Berbera: what they do, how big they are, the Saudi ban and its end, the 2025 licence dispute, and the new SILQC centre.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/businesses/berbera-livestock-quarantine-companies/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## The short version

Live animals make up about 80% of Somalia's export earnings in normal years, and Saudi Arabia is the main buyer ([Hiiraan Online, January 2025](https://hiiraan.com/news4/2025/Jan/199738/somalia_s_livestock_monopoly_controversy_sparks_push_for_accountability.aspx)). Before animals can be shipped they spend time in a quarantine station, where they are ear-tagged, vaccinated against Rift Valley fever and blood-tested for brucellosis; animals that test positive are kept back ([National Geographic, 16 June 2014](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/robin-hammond-the-largest-trade-on-the-hoof)). At Berbera these stations are run by private companies, several of them owned by Saudi livestock importers.

## The stations

In April 2011 The Cattle Site reported that Saudi livestock importers ran one quarantine station at Djibouti, two at Berbera and one at [Bosaso](/en/regions/bari/). The two Berbera stations could hold 2 to 2.5 million animals between them, and a third, costing $2 million, was being built by a Saudi livestock trader ([The Cattle Site, 4 April 2011](https://www.thecattlesite.com/news/34125/horn-of-africa-to-double-livestock-exports-to-saudi)). Saudi Arabia had eased an eleven-year ban on [Somaliland](/en/states/somaliland-1991-to-2026/) livestock in October 2009 and said in 2011 it would double imports from the Horn of Africa (same source).

National Geographic's 2014 photo report from Berbera named the Saudi Emirate Veterinary Quarantine Management Company, which could hold 300,000 animals at a time, and the Berbera National Health Quarantine, which could hold 120,000. It said Somaliland shipped about 1.3 million sheep and goats in the weeks before the Hajj, and quoted an FAO estimate that $250 million worth of animals left Berbera and Bosaso in the seven weeks before it. One ship it photographed, bound for Jeddah, could carry almost 85,000 animals ([National Geographic, 2014](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/robin-hammond-the-largest-trade-on-the-hoof)).

## The 2025 licence dispute

In January 2025 traders and nearly 100 members of Somalia's federal parliament objected to reports that the federal government had given one foreign businessman sole rights to export livestock to Saudi Arabia; Somaliland traders said exports from Berbera stopped for two weeks and about 80,000 animals were left waiting at the port ([Hiiraan Online, January 2025](https://hiiraan.com/news4/2025/Jan/199738/somalia_s_livestock_monopoly_controversy_sparks_push_for_accountability.aspx)). In February 2025 Somaliland's livestock minister said the government had revoked the licence of the Berbera inspection centre run by the same businessman, one of three quarantine centres in Somaliland, because he had signed the deal with the federal government ([Hiiraan Online, February 2025](https://hiiraan.com/news4/2025/Feb/200062/somaliland_shuts_down_key_livestock_facility_over_export_deal_with_somalia.aspx)).

## SILQC

The Saudi International Livestock Quarantine Center (SILQC) says it was founded in 2025, covers 2 square kilometres at Berbera, and is the largest quarantine site in Somaliland. It describes itself as privately built and regulated by Somaliland's Ministry of Livestock and Rural Development ([SILQC](https://www.saliqc.com/)).

## Related

- [Somali farming, livestock and fishing companies: directory](/en/businesses/farming-livestock-and-fishing-directory/)
- [Livestock exports](/en/economy/livestock-exports/)
- [Gulf bans on Somali livestock](/en/economy/gulf-bans-on-somali-livestock/)
- [Camels in Somalia](/en/economy/camels-in-somalia/)
- [The Somali goat](/en/economy/somali-goat/)

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