The United Nations postponed the visit of its team of experts more than once after the Houthi militias reneged on their previous pledges to allow the team to maintain and empty the floating tank, in order to avoid an environmental catastrophe beyond the region, while the Yemeni government accuses the militias of using the tank as a political blackmail card.
And the deputy governor of the Yemeni province of Hodeidah, Walid Al-Qadimi, said in a tweet, which he described as “urgent and important” on his Twitter page, on Monday, that “there is a leak from the oil pipeline extending to the Safer reservoir,” considering this “a disaster that will happen in the Red Sea.”
The Yemeni official accused the Security Council of failing to implement its decisions, and that it had “simply become not up to its mission”, in reference to the repeated decisions and calls issued by the Security Council to the Houthis to quickly allow UN experts to examine the Safer oil tank, and hold them responsible for delaying the technical evaluation of the tank. And warning of the danger of it exploding and causing an environmental, economic, maritime and humanitarian disaster for Yemen and the region.
The deputy governor of Hodeidah called on the countries bordering the Red Sea, led by Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt, to take urgent and quick measures towards this environmental disaster.
Recently, the Houthi militia announced its rejection of the United Nations plan to maintain and unload the Safer oil tanker, which warns of an oil spill and an environmental disaster that is the largest in history.
The Yemeni Minister of Water and Environment called, earlier, to include the leadership of the Houthi militia as environmental criminals, and stressed that time requires studying all options to avoid the Safir tanker disaster, including studying the possibility of using military force by the affected countries to besiege the threat to their natural resources and ecosystem.
The tanker “Safer” is a floating storage and unloading unit, anchored off the western coast of Yemen, 60 km north of the port of Hodeidah, and is used to store and export oil coming from the Ma’rib oil fields.
Because the ship has not undergone maintenance work since 2015, the crude oil carried on board (1.148 million barrels), and the rising gases pose a serious threat to the region, and the United Nations says that the ship is a time bomb that may explode at any moment.
Previously, satellite images showed the start of an oil leak from the Safer Floating Reservoir at Ras Issa Port in the Hodeidah Governorate in the Red Sea, western Yemen.
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