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An old tanker anchored off the coast of Yemen threatens the Red Sea

2020-10-30T17:09:00.601Z


The war in the Arab country makes it difficult for the UN to carry out repairs that reduce the risk of spill


A tanker anchored off the port of Hodeida, on the Yemeni Red Sea coast, threatens to unleash an environmental, health and economic catastrophe that would affect millions of people in Yemen and other nearby countries.

Since the beginning of the civil war almost six years ago, the

Safer

has been in the area under the control of the Huthi rebels, whose misgivings and concerns have so far prevented access by UN experts.

Environmentalists and diplomats have been warning for months that its deterioration has turned it into a time bomb.

The

Safer,

built in 1976, arrived in Yemen in 1988 and was installed off the coast of Ras Issa, where an oil pipeline from Mareb empties, to store crude and serve as an export terminal.

It fell into Huthi hands in March 2015, when the rebels who had taken power in Sanaa a few months earlier took control of that area.

At least since then, no significant maintenance work has been carried out and the government, backed by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, holds the rebels responsible for an eventual environmental disaster.

The Saudi ambassador to the UN said a month ago that an "oil slick" had been spotted 50 kilometers west of the ship.

And in a satellite photo captured by Planet Labs on September 14, a spill is seen next to the tanker.

It is a fact that little by little, the sea water has been corroding the hull and the tanks.

Photographs taken on board last year showed leaky pipes and rusted joints.

At the end of last May, the UN was alerted that water had entered the engine room.

The fear of being hit by a projectile, which according to some sources would cause an explosion greater than the one that shook the port of Beirut last August, is joined by the risk of an oil leak.

The tanker, whose English name means "safer" ironically, stores 1.1 million barrels of oil (157,000 tons).

That's four times more than the load from the

Exxon Valdés

,

whose dumping into Alaskan waters in 1989 was the biggest environmental disaster of its kind.

The European ambassadors to Yemen a few days ago expressed their concern about the threat posed by the

Safer's

poor condition

and called on the Huthi to "cooperate fully with the UN."

In mid-October, the United Nations Security Council also asked the

de facto

authorities

to "urgently and unconditionally facilitate safe access for UN experts to evaluate and repair" the ship.

The European statement made reference to an independent simulation that has tried to see what would happen if the hull were to break.

“The result depends a lot on the time of year in which it occurs, the tides, etc., but in all scenarios, even if a part of the oil reached the coasts of Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Eritrea, the majority would remain in Yemeni waters. , devastating the fishing reserves on which coastal communities live ”, explains anonymously a diplomat who has had access to that report.

However, the greatest danger, all the sources consulted agree, would be the closure of the port of Hodeida for up to six months.

It is the main source of supply for the two-thirds of Yemenis living under Huthi control, in a country that imports virtually all of its food, medicine and fuel.

"At a time when Yemen is on the brink of famine, the closure of its largest port would affect millions of people even in regions far from the coast," says a UN official.

Everybody wants to avoid something like that.

In fact, both the internationally recognized government and the rebels already requested technical assistance from the United Nations in early 2018 to minimize the risk of a spill.

However, the threat of a military operation by the Arab coalition to reclaim the port of Hodeida made it impossible to organize the mission.

A year later, taking advantage of the ceasefire agreed in Stockholm, the UN addressed the matter with the rebels, but it was not until August that they authorized access to the ship.

By the time the organization managed to assemble the necessary technical equipment, the political tables had turned and the night before deployment the Huthi retracted.

At some point, perhaps they considered that the

Safer

could serve as a brake on the coalition assault.

The eventual destruction of the ship in a bombardment would make its enemies responsible for the ensuing calamity.

His attitude seems to have changed since the water leaks became known last May.

Although they have not yet signed the agreement authorizing access to UN experts, the talks have progressed and their objections are no longer political to focus on the technical problems posed by the state of the ship.

But time passes and, after eight weeks of negotiation, doubts begin to arise about its seriousness.

All eyes are on the next Security Council session on Yemen on November 11.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-30

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