Many residents rushed to supermarkets in Qatar to stock up on food items after waking up to news of Saudi Arabia closing the country’s only land border.

Shoppers stock up on food essentials at supermarkets

Customers could be seen piling their carts high with supplies of milk, water, rice and eggs at several popular grocery stores, which were even busier than is usual for Ramadan.

“I’ve never seen anything like it – people have trolleys full of food and water,” one long-time resident who asked not to be named told Doha News while at Carrefour in Villaggio mall.

Photographs of empty chiller shelves have already been circulating on social media sites, as residents reportedly cleared out stores of chicken and other fresh and frozen meat in some shops.

However, many other stores continued to have plentiful stocks.

Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry insisted in a statement that the border closing would not impact normal life in the country for citizens and residents.

It added that the Qatari government will “take all the necessary measures to make certain of that and to thwart attempts to negatively affect Qatari society and economy.”

Closed borders

The grocery rush follows an escalating rift between Qatar and its neighboring Gulf states.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain announced that they would close all land, air and sea borders with Qatar within 24 hours.

As a peninsula that neighbors Saudi Arabia, Qatar relies heavily on its only land border to access food, as well as raw materials for its numerous mega infrastructure projects./.

Complied by VNF