Mereja Forum

[AbyssiniaLady]

Arab nations sound alarm over oil tanker moored off Yemen


(Old image of Afar women selling necklaces on Dessie island in Dahlak archipelago)

Vessel holding nearly 2 million litres of oil could spill its cargo or explode after not being serviced since 2015,

Six Arab countries are urging the UN Security Council to exercise “maximum efforts” to persuade Yemen’s Houthi rebels to allow the United Nations to inspect a tanker moored in the Red Sea while loaded with over a million barrels to prevent “widespread environmental damage, a humanitarian disaster and the disruption of maritime commerce”.

In a letter to the council circulated on Thursday, they warned that in the event of an explosion or leak “the possibility of a spill of 181 million litres of oil in the Red Sea would be four times worse than the oil disaster of the Exxon Valdez Exxon, which took place in Alaska in 1989”.

The tanker Safer, which stayed moored to operate like a mini-terminal to store and offload oil from Yemen’s inland oil fields, has reportedly not been used since March 2015, when the region fell under control of the Houthis, and there are serious concerns its structure has deteriorated significantly.

Yemen plunged into war in 2014 after the Iranian-backed Houthis took over the capital of Sanaa.

The internationally recognised government in the Arab world's most impoverished country, with a population of 26 million, fled and sought support from neighbouring Gulf nations. In March 2015, a Saudi-led Arab coalition enetered the war in support of the government. More than 10,000 people, have been killed and 2 million displaced in the conflict, which has created the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

The tanker is moored north of Yemen’s main port of Hodeidah, which handles about 70 per cent of the country’s commercial and humanitarian imports. The UN ambassadors from Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan

the whole article
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/a ... n-1.995369

[AbyssiniaLady]

Spotlight: Officials fear stranded oil tanker off Yemen's coast could explode

ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's officials on Tuesday reiterated their fears that a stranded oil tanker could explode and cause serious pollution off the country's Red Sea coast.

Loaded with nearly 1.1 million barrels of oil, the tanker Safer has been stranded some 7 km off Yemen's Ras Isa port, north of the city of Hodeidah.

In August, the United Nations attempted to assess the Safer. But the Houthis rebels blocked the access to the derelict tanker that was being used as a floating storage for oil transfers.

The Houthis placed submitting the revenues from the sale of the oil aboard the tanker to their bank in Sanaa as a precondition to allowing the UN inspection team to reach the Safer.

Officials of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, based in the southern port city of Aden, expressed their concern that the Houthis are still refusing to grant the international inspectors access to the decaying oil tanker.

They said the tanker is at the risk of exploding as it has remained without maintenance since it fell under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in 2015.

"The tanker is in a pressing need for urgent maintenance," as four years' accumulation of flammable gases and the formation of hydrocarbon gases may lead to a blast, an official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

He said, "For several times, the Yemeni government called for international assistance in preventing the potentially serious oil pollution threatening the Red Sea's ecology but received no active response."

The international community should exert more efforts in pressuring and forcing the Houthi rebels to allow the UN's technical team to carry out necessary maintenance of the tanker and aborting any environmental disaster, the official said.

Last month, the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs dispatched a newly written speech to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appeal for international assistance in preventing a potential environmental disaster due to the deterioration of the offloading terminal.

In June, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock warned the Security Council that "if the tanker ruptures or explodes, we could see the coastline polluted all along the Red Sea."

"Depending on the time of year and water currents, the spill could reach from Bab-el-Mandeb to the Suez Canal -- and potentially as far as the Strait of Hormuz," added Lowcock, who is also the world organization's emergency relief coordinator.

Bab-el-Mandeb is the strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

"If a major spill occurs, the world will surely demand answers from anyone who could have prevented the catastrophe but chose not to," Lowcock said.

Salah Bin Laghbar, a southern political expert, told Xinhua that the Houthi rebels pay no concern about the dangerous environmental impacts but only concentrate on gaining revenues of the oil sale estimated at around 80 million U.S. dollars.

"The Houthis are besieged financially and need to finance their military campaigns against the southern regions regardless of the environmental catastrophe that may occur as a result of their obstruction to maintenance of the tanker," said Laghbar.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-1 ... 638603.htm

[AbyssiniaLady]

"If a major spill occurs, the world will surely demand answers from anyone who could have prevented the catastrophe but chose not to,"

Hodeidah is located just a stone's throw away from Afar and Tigre shoreline's but the good for nothing Eritrean regime doesn't actually care about Afar & Tigre people and the environment.

[Zmeselo]

This hoe posts a story about Yemen, but shows a pic of eritrean Afari women!

Why?

She hopes the oil spill reaches the Eritrean coast, when the explosion happens.

[AbyssiniaLady]

^^^^
Sleep deprived azzhole get lost!!


The Afar coastline stretch up 1000 km and contain historic villages, ports and islands. Dahlak Island, for example, contains over 300 islands which have served as the traditional fishing economic base for generations.




Old image of Afar women selling necklaces on Dessie island in Dahlak archipelago, Now they are in refugees camps in Ethiopia.




tourist.

[Zmeselo]

You've ur fingers crossed to see the blue waters of Eritrea, turn black.

We know the mentality of green eyes hassadat!

^^^^
Sleep deprived azzhole get lost!!


The Afar coastline stretch up 1000 km and contain historic villages, ports and islands. Dahlak Island, for example, contains over 300 islands which have served as the traditional fishing economic base for generations.




Old image of Afar women selling necklaces on Dessie island in Dahlak archipelago, Now they are in refugees camps in Ethiopia.




tourist.

[kebena05]

Agame lady (I always wonder why a man calls himself a lady LOL)

We made you never to see a drop of our beloved Red Sea water....EVER! How many your coward soldiers were drawened by our gallant fighters....only their god knows

Now go back into collecting Anbeta while I am jumping from Dahlak Hotel balcony you to MY Red Sea water; errrrrirrr beye

"If a major spill occurs, the world will surely demand answers from anyone who could have prevented the catastrophe but chose not to,"

Hodeidah is located just a stone's throw away from Afar and Tigre shoreline's but the good for nothing Eritrean regime doesn't actually care about Afar & Tigre people and the environment.