Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they were “ready” on Wednesday to facilitate the inspection by a UN mission of the abandoned Safer tanker in the Red Sea which threatens to cause an oil spill, denying putting any obstacles there as reported by the UN.
“There is no problem and we do not want to delay”, the inspection, set for early March, told AFP in Sanaa Ahmed Darès who serves as “Minister of Oil” in the administration of the rebels . “We are ready for the maintenance operation,” he insisted, as the inspection of the ship has dragged on for years between requests for access from the UN and refusal of the Houthis.
On Tuesday, United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement that the organization had already committed $ 3.35 million for the operation but that it was still awaiting a letter from the Houthis on “guarantees of security”.
“We regret that to date, we have not received a response to our multiple requests for this letter, the absence of which would increase the cost of the mission by hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “We are also very concerned about indications that the (Houthi) authorities are considering a + review + of their formal approval of the deployment of the mission,” he said. But Mr. Darès categorically asserted that “there is nothing new” and that his administration “has not been notified of anything new”. “We ask to” carry out this mission and we pose no obstacle to it, “he insisted.
About 45 years old and containing 1.1 million barrels of crude, the FSO Safer has been anchored since 2015 off the port of Hodeida (west), some sixty km from the first inhabited areas in the country at war since 2014 .
A leak could affect neighboring countries, including Djibouti, Eritrea and Saudi Arabia, as well as commercial maritime traffic in the Red Sea. An oil spill could destroy ecosystems in this sea, shut down the vital port of Hodeidah for six months and expose more than 8.4 million people to high levels of pollutants, independent studies show.
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they were “ready” on Wednesday to facilitate the inspection by a UN mission of the abandoned Safer tanker in the Red Sea which threatens to cause an oil spill, denying putting any obstacles there as reported by the UN “There is no problem and we do not want to delay”, the inspection, set for early March, told AFP in Sanaa Ahmed Darès who made …
