(Top) A worker looks into a machine used to pluck chickens. Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – An inspection team raided a factory slaughtering sick chickens and selling the rotten meat to restaurants in Jeddah. Authorities say the factory supplied meat to many well-known restaurants and that the quantities delivered reached 3,000 chickens per day. The factory was reported by a citizen who was alerted by a “stinking smell everywhere around the place.” The factory was concealed behind a fence to keeping trespassers out. The citizen noticed small trucks entering the factory in the evening and leaving with hundreds of cartons. Following the citizen's report, the Briman Municipality inspection team led by Abdullah Al-Ajmi went immediately to the location. The raiding team found sick chickens, forged expiry date stamps and hundreds of tools used to slaughter chickens at the site, 25 km east of the Air Force Base Bridge. The team destroyed all equipment and tools inside the factory and shut it down. “There are large quantities of chicken leaving this factory daily around midnight. Operatives have been working here for years and the place reeks of stinking smells,” a foreigner, who works near the factory said. Al-Ajmi, Director of Briman Municipality, said an investigation has already been ordered. “The place was full of rotten chicken which attracted flies and insects, not to mention the stinking smell,” he said. Authorities say some well-known restaurants bought the factory's chicken despite the fact that the chickens were inedible and not fit for human consumption. “The restaurants supplied by this factory will undergo investigation and will be fined if they are found to have bought rotten chicken from the factory,” he said. Toxicology and forensic chemistry specialist Dr. Hani Niazi, says: “In the most serious cases, rotten chicken can cause poisoning immediately after consumption or it can have a less noticeable but serious longterm negative effect on humans.” Poisoning symptoms are usually manifested within 2-6 hours and include nausea, vomiting, severe diarrhea and abdominal pain, he said. __
