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AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: Until the Iranian-backed Houthi militia seized the western Yemeni port city of Hodeidah in late 2014, local and foreign experts regularly visited a 45-year-old tanker moored in the Red Sea .
It was a practice that ensured that the FSO Safer, abandoned just a few kilometers off the coast of Yemen, would not trigger a disaster by exploding or sinking and spilling oil. But having witnessed the devastation caused by the August 4 explosion in Beirut and taken its lessons seriously, the Arab world cannot afford to ignore the imminent danger posed by the Houthis’ stalemate tactics.
Saudi Arabia expressed concern about the condition of the ship and called a meeting of Arab environment ministers on Monday. According to a statement issued on Sunday by Kamal Hassan, Under Secretary General and Head of the Economic Affairs Sector of the Arab League, the purpose of the special session is to discuss ways and mechanisms to activate Resolution No. 582, which was adopted by the Council of Arab Ministers responsible for Environmental Affairs in October 2019.
The aim is “to find a suitable solution to avoid an environmental catastrophe due to the lack of maintenance of the oil tanker Safer anchored in the oil port of Ras Issa in the Red Sea since 2015.”
When the Houthi militia took control of Hodeidah, the FSO Safer was carrying 1.1 million barrels of oil, or nearly half its capacity, according to local officials. As soon as the fighters tightened their hold on the city, the technical experts fled the area, realizing that it had become too dangerous for them to stay.
Over the past two years, FSO Safer has drawn regional and international attention on and off, thanks in part to the regular appearance on social media of photos of rusted pipes and water seeping into engine rooms, generating the specter of a floating ship. barrel of gunpowder.
INNUMBER
45 Age of the FSO Tanker Safer
1.1 million barrels of crude oil in tanker
During the same period, Yemeni government officials, environmentalists and foreign diplomats have sounded the alarm about possible outcomes that could exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and have a high environmental toll on the Red Sea littoral states.
The UN has suggested sending a team of experts to Hodeidah to assess the damage to FSO Safer, but the Houthi militia, which wants to pocket the proceeds from the sale of oil, have rejected the proposal. The oil in FSO Safer’s storage tanks was once estimated to be worth $ 40 million, but its value may now be less than half, as crude prices have fallen sharply since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the reports.
The internationally recognized government of Yemen has repeatedly accused the Houthi militia of using the decomposing tanker as bargaining chips, citing demands such as resuming the salaries of public servants in the areas under its control, the removal of forces Hodeidah government and a more relaxed inspection. of ships bound for the port.
In July, the government asked the UN Security Council to convene an urgent session to discuss the Safer issue amid concerns that time was running out. In almost all of their meetings with foreign envoys and diplomats, Yemeni officials raise the tanker issue and the attendant risk of an environmental disaster in the Red Sea. Over the past few months, Western and Arab diplomats, UN officials, aid organizations and experts have also underscored the urgency of breaking the deadlock to avoid a human, economic and environmental catastrophe.
In July, the UN described the rusting tanker as a “time bomb”, adding that the tanker’s oil load could cause an environmental disaster four times greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska. Last week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres added his voice to growing concern over the stalemate by calling on the Houthi militia to give UN experts access to the tanker.
As for the Trump administration, their views were conveyed through a tweet from the US mission to the UN that said: “The United States calls on the Houthis to cease obstruction and interference in aid operations and imports of fuel. We urge the Houthis to stop attacking religious freedom and allow UN technical teams immediate and unconditional access to the oil tanker Safer. “
In comments to Arab News in June, Michael Aron, the British ambassador to Yemen, said that unless the Houthi leadership allowed experts to address the FSO Safer issues, the potential damage to the environment is far greater than that caused by the recent spill of 20,000 tons. fuel in the Siberia of Russia. “The threat to the environment in the Red Sea is enormous and will affect all countries that share this coastline,” he said.
Independent researchers also say Safer’s condition is deeply concerning. In a document for the Atlantic Council in 2019 titled “Why the Huge Floating Bomb in the Red Sea Needs Urgent Attention,” energy experts Dr. Ian Ralby, Dr. David Soud, and Rohini Ralby said that the possible consequences of a disaster of a tanker in the area includes the end of the two-year ceasefire in Hodeidah and a worsening of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.
“The risk of an explosion increases by the day, and if that happened, it would not only damage or sink the ships in the vicinity, but it would create an environmental crisis approximately four and a half times the size of Exxon Valdez oil. spill, ”the three scientists said. Other experts have speculated that just a stray bullet from an exchange of fire between rival factions could trigger an explosion in FSO Safer’s oil cargo.
“Worse still, given the complexity of this war, a roving bullet or projectile from either combatant could set off an explosion as large as the August 4 disaster in Beirut, resulting in a historic oil spill.” – Dave Harden , managing director of Georgetown Strategy Group, wrote in an op-ed in The Hill last month. He added: “The cleanup efforts would be overwhelming, given the insecurity of being in a war zone and the additional health risks from COVID-19.”
Local government officials and Hodeidah fishermen have expressed similar concerns. Waleed Al-Qudaimi, deputy governor of Hodeidah, said that any spill from the FSO Safer would create a humanitarian crisis as serious as that caused by the Houthi insurgency.
“(The oil spill) will add an additional burden that will affect Yemen for decades to come, deprive thousands of people of their jobs and destroy marine biodiversity in Yemeni waters,” he said. Al-Qudaimi called on the international community to maintain pressure on the militia to allow maintenance work to be carried out.
For a country reeling from a combination of conflict, humanitarian crisis, sinking currency, and a crumbling economy, repairs to an abandoned tanker off its coast may not have the tone of urgency normally associated with a major disaster.
But now that the world knows what happened when Lebanese officials ignored warnings for years about a cache of highly explosive material stored in a Beirut port warehouse, the importance of solving the FSO Safer problem cannot be overstated.
• Twitter: @saeedalBatati
