He warned the United Nations about the million barrels stored by the ship, “it will turn the Red Sea into the Black Sea”.
MADRID, 25 March (EUROPA PRESS) –
David Gressly, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, warned that the supertanker ‘FSO Safer’, which has been dormant for nearly a decade off the coast of Yemen and still contains more than a million barrels of crude oil, could “sink or explode”. at any time” and could cause an unprecedented ecological disaster in the region.
“No one wants the Red Sea to be the Black Sea, but it turns out it will be,” Gressly told Sky News. Inspection since the start of the war in the country in 2015.
Humanitarian aid warned “it’s not a question of ‘maybe’. It’s a question of ‘when’,” amid recent efforts by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and announced the mid-month purchase of a vessel to extract the crude oil stored inside the ship.
According to a model predicted by the scientific journal Nature Sustainability, a full spill of ‘Safer’ would extend to Saudi Arabia, all the waters of Eritrea and Djibouti, and would require the immediate closure of Yemen’s port of Hodeida. Access to basic humanitarian assistance for the six million war-affected people.
The leak will also prevent fuel from reaching the eight million people who need fuel to run their generators or drinking water pumps in a completely devastated country that has become the scene of the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet in years.
Gress was unable to hide his disappointment that international donors were unable to provide the estimated €30 million needed to complete the transport of the barrels to the UNDP vessel, especially when all estimates point to a leak that would cost around 20,000 million. euro.
“It’s true that the situation international donors face is very complex for a number of reasons, but the truth is they have the money to deal with emergencies. If there was a leak, we would have tens of millions of dollars to clean it up, but when it comes to preventing disasters, nobody seems to have money in their budget,” he said. .
Source: Noti Merica
