UN says agreement in principle on transfer of oil from abandoned tanker off Yemen
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, announced yesterday evening an agreement in principle on a UN proposal that would transfer more than one million barrels of crude oil from the Safer tanker, which is anchored off the coast of Yemen, to another ship.
Griffiths told the UN Security Council he was pleased to report recent progress in efforts to resolve the issue of the tanker Safer, whose long-term presence in the Red Sea has sparked fears of a massive oil spill or an explosion that could cause an environmental disaster, AP reported.
Ten days ago, the UN reported positive discussions with Yemeni government authorities and Houthi militias to find an urgent solution to this abandoned tanker, and to avoid leaking its cargo to the water, which would cause a major environmental disaster.
The Safer, which was manufactured 45 years ago and uses a floating storage platform loaded with 1.1 million barrels of crude oil, is estimated to cost $40 million. The oil leak from the tanker would cause significant damage to the Red Sea ecosystems and cause the closure of the port of Hodeidah for several months, exposing more than 8.4 million people to high levels of pollution, according to independent studies.
Greenpeace warns that closing the ports of Hodeida and As-Salif, through which 6% of humanitarian aid enters Yemen, will harm more than 8.4 million people.
Yemen has been in a state of civil war since 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group took control of the capital Sana’a and most of the north, forcing the government to move to the south and then to Saudi Arabia.
