$144m needed to avert disaster of decaying Yemen tanker, says UN
Civilian casualties halved since two-month ceasefire began in war-torn country: NGO
The UN was seeking $144 million on Wednesday needed to fund the salvage operation of a decaying tanker full of oil moored off the coast of Yemen, a ship whose demise could cause an environmental disaster.
The amount includes $80 million to transfer the more than 1 million barrels of crude oil the FSO Safer is carrying to storage, said David Gressly, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.
The pledging conference, co-hosted by the UN and the Netherlands, comes more than two months after the UN and Yemen’s Houthi rebels reached an agreement to transfer the tanker’s contents to another vessel.
The agreement also includes a UN commitment to provide within 18 months a “replacement equivalent to the FSO Safer suitable for export.”
The Iranian-backed Houthis control Yemen’s western Red Sea ports — including Ras Issa, just 6 km from where the FSO Safer has been moored since the 1980s.
The Houthis on Tuesday criticized the UN for allegedly “not presenting an operational plan” to maintain the tanker, more than two months since they signed the memorandum of understanding, a statement that could complicate UN efforts to raise funds.
There was no immediate comment from the UN on the Houthi statement but the organization previously accused the rebels of delaying its maintenance plans.
Gressly said the vessel is slowly rusting and going into significant decay, and could explode, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life, desalination factories and international shipping routes.
“Every day that passes, every month that passes, every year that passes, increases the chance that the vessel will break up and spill its contents,” he told reporters earlier this week.
Gressly said the UN estimates that about $20 billion would be needed to just clean up an oil spill, which would likely impact nearby countries, including Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Eritrea. He also said the first phase of the salvage should be completed by the end of September, otherwise it could face turbulent winds that start in October.
The Japanese-built tanker was sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of export oil pumped from fields of Marib province, currently a battlefield. The ship is 360 meters long with 34 storage tanks.
Since 2015, annual maintenance on the ship has come to a complete halt. Most crew members, except
for 10 people, were pulled off the vessel after the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen entered the war in 2015 on the side of the internationally recognized government.
Yemen’s conflict started in 2014 when the Houthis took control of the capital and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
Internal documents show that seawater has entered the engine compartment of the tanker, causing damage to pipes and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases, has leaked out. Experts say maintenance is no longer possible because the damage to the ship is irreversible.
The UN has repeatedly warned that the tanker could release four times more oil than the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989.
Meanwhile, the number of civilian casualties in war-torn Yemen has dropped by over 50 percent since a two-month truce took effect in early April, an aid group said.
The Norwegian Refugee Council — which has been providing food, shelter and other necessities to mitigate what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis — said civilian casualties totaled 95 in April, down from 213 in March, citing data from the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project.
“The figures provide clear proof of the benefits from the truce. During the last month, many families were spared from having their lives shattered by the loss of family members to a meaningless war,” NRC’s Yemen country director Erin Hutchinson said in a statement.
“For the sake of the Yemeni people and their future, we hope the parties to the conflict will extend the truce.”
A renewable two-month truce that took effect on April 2 has provided a rare respite from violence in much of the country.
The NRC said there had been a “significant reduction” in the number of people killed or wounded by airstrikes, shelling and gunfire.
However, it added that despite a sharp reduction in violence, the number of casualties from land mines and unexploded ordnance remained the same or higher.
“We urge the warring parties to adhere to their commitments and work to find a peaceful resolution to this conflict, which has already killed and maimed thousands, and deprived millions of their livelihoods,” Hutchinson said.
“That people are still being injured and killed by land mines and improvised explosive devices shows the critical need for a long-lasting peace, so that these remnants of war can be removed and more lives saved.”