LONDON: Yemen’s Minister of Transport Abd Al-Salam Hamid called on the UN to exert more pressure on the Houthis to keep a decaying oil tanker moored in the Red Sea “away from the existing political conflict” as its looming threat will affect “everyone without exception.”
The Safer tanker has been abandoned since 2017 as an estimated 1.1 million barrels of crude oil still remain onboard.
Hamid’s comments came during a meeting on Tuesday in the interim capital, Aden, with Samia Al-Duaij, an environmental consultant and a representative of the UN Development Program, Salma Elhag, director of UNDP office in Aden and Mukallah, and Walid Baharoun, program specialist at UNDP Yemen.
They discussed the potentially catastrophic repercussions on the marine environment if the Safer tanker explodes, breaks up, or starts leaking. The rotting vessel holds four times the oil spilled during the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989 in the Gulf of Alaska.
A potential oil spill in the Red Sea would spread well beyond Yemen and cause environmental havoc affecting Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and other nearby countries.
According to The Guardian, the UN has been seeking Houthi permission to inspect the ship, but the Iran-backed rebels want undertakings that the vessel will also be repaired, an exercise that requires money the UN does not have available.
Hamid said the situation no longer requires maintenance, but the tanker now needs to be permanently offloaded.
He added that his ministry was ready to provide the required facilities so experts can deal with the tanker crisis in a way that contributes to containing its potential consequences.
Al-Duaij said the UNDP is very concerned about the floating tanker crisis and added that expert teams have held several meetings and discussions about solutions. They all agreed that the Safer should be offloaded.
She also said that the International Maritime Organization has implemented an urgent emergency plan in the case oil starts to leak from the tanker.
Yemen pressuring Houthis to keep Safer tanker ‘away from political conflict’
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Yemen pressuring Houthis to keep Safer tanker ‘away from political conflict’
- Decaying oil tanker moored in the Red Sea has been abandoned since 2017 as an estimated 1.1m barrels of crude oil still remain onboard
- Yemen’s Minister of Transport says the situation no longer requires maintenance, but the tanker now needs to be permanently offloaded
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
