Oil tanker stranded in the red Sea with more than one million barrels leaks

Yemen is too small a country to be able to withstand all the disasters it faces. As if the armed conflict between the Houthis, a Shiite militia, and the government of the country led by Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi, and the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet were not enough, an environmental disaster is brewing off the Yemeni coast. The oil tanker Safer, which is over 40 years old and has been stranded in the red Sea since 2015, is experiencing its first water leaks.  

The United Nations has long warned of the risk posed by the Safer, as it is in a poor state outside the Houthian-controlled port of Ras Isaa. An official from SAFER Exploration & Production Operations Company has said that there has been a leak in the oil tank floating some 4.8 nautical miles from the port of Isa, in the governorate of Hodeidah, west Yemen, according to the digital Arabic version of the Alroeya newspaper. Safer's financial director, Hamid Dahan, has admitted the failure of the technical teams' efforts to keep the tank afloat and has lost an urgent and immediate intervention by the United Nations to address the danger that has reached a high level of threat with an unprecedented environmental disaster in the region.

Dahan said in a tweet, picked up by Alroeya, that the company's team is trying to keep some of the leaks within available capabilities, indicating that the situation needs urgent UN intervention to empty the tanks. This official has clarified that the situation of the tank presages an imminent disaster and has explained that despite continuous appeals to avoid the disaster, the company that owns the boat has not taken charge.  

The official has attached in his tweets the images that show the water leakage to the warehouse where one million tanks of crude oil are applied since 2015. No maintenance work has been carried out since then either. The Yemeni information minister, Muammar Al-Eryani, had already blamed the Houthis for the disaster that may occur as a result of the sinking or explosion of the Safer oil tanker and the leak of over a million barrels of oil into the red Sea, after ignoring all the pleas and warnings that were made and disavowing their commitment to allow a technical team. 

The minister has asked the international community for help in containing the risks of the explosion or sinking of the oil and not to allow the oil to be traded. The Houthi militia has announced that a team has held talks with a group of UN experts to assess and maintain the tank. The Houthi-affiliated Saba agency reported that the meeting had addressed issues of urgent repairs and equipment.  

The Yemeni environmental association The Green Dream foundation has announced that if oil is spilled from the reservoir, more than 126,000 people working in the fishing industry could lose their jobs and it would take up to 30 years for the natural environment to recover from the damaging effects of the action. In June last year, the UN Security Council described the situation of the vessel as "dangerously high" in a statement warning that there were signs of a possible breach in the vessel.