The Dutch Foreign Minister, Sigrid Kach, announced today, Monday, her country’s readiness to contribute to finding solutions to deal with the issue of the “Safer” floating oil tank file, off the western coast of Yemen, in light of the Houthi militia’s continued intransigence and refusal to allow the international team assigned to inspect the tank.
The Dutch official expressed, during her meeting in The Hague, Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmed bin Mubarak, that the Netherlands is deeply concerned about the issue of the Safer Floating Reservoir, which requires immediate treatment of this issue. In order to avoid an environmental disaster that will affect Yemen and the region.
She also stressed the importance of resuming the negotiation process in order to find peaceful solutions to the conflict in Yemen, according to what was reported by the official Yemeni News Agency.
In turn, the Yemeni Foreign Minister reiterated the need for the international community to take strict measures to put an end to the intransigence of the Houthi militias and their rejection of all efforts aimed at achieving peace, and the continuation of their aggression against the people
He pointed to the continuation of the continuous terrorist attacks carried out by the Houthi militia on the Marib Governorate, which caused many civilian casualties, especially women and children, pointing to the restrictions imposed by the Houthi militia on the delivery of Food, medical, and oil derivatives for citizens living in the areas under its control, which exacerbates the already deteriorating humanitarian situation.
The Yemeni Minister of Water and Environment, Tawfiq Al-Sharjabi, had warned of the danger of a potential catastrophe related to the floating oil tank. A whistleblower off the coast of Hodeidah, and the resulting repercussions on the environmental, humanitarian and economic levels, whether on Yemen or the countries of the region.
Al-Sharjabi said before a ministerial conference organized by the United Nations Environment Organization in Geneva to discuss the problem of marine litter, yesterday, Sunday, that the solution to the potential disaster begins by allowing the technical team of the United Nations to access and unload the floating oil tanker, which the Houthi militia has rejected for six years, stressing the need for international action to avoid the severe consequences of this imminent disaster, which Threatening Yemen and the world.
The United Nations postponed the visit of its team of experts more than once after the Houthis retracted and reneged on their pledges to allow the team to visit the tanker, which is described as a “time bomb”, and conduct the evaluation process and then the required maintenance, to avoid a catastrophe.
The United Nations Security Council called on the Houthi rebels in Yemen to quickly allow United Nations experts to examine an oil tanker loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil anchored off the coast of Yemen, and warned The risk of its explosion and causing an environmental, economic, maritime and humanitarian catastrophe for Yemen and the region… blaming the Houthis for delaying the technical evaluation of the Safer tanker, which the United Nations had hoped to publish last March. Explode The wreckage of the oil tanker “Safer” in Hodeidah, “at any moment”… called on the United Nations to take urgent action to prevent a “disaster”. It may cause one of the 10 largest similar accidents in history.
The tanker SAFER is a floating storage and offloading 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 fields of Marib Governorate.
Because the ship has not undergone maintenance work since 2015, crude oil (1.148 million barrels), and rising gases pose a serious threat to the region, and the United Nations says the ship is a time bomb that may explode at any moment.
Recently, 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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