With no maintenance for over 6 years, flammable gases may be building up in the stranded oil tanker in Yemen

“Safer is a dangerous site”

New York: Inger Andersen, our head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has warned the United Nations Security Council members in a briefing on June 3, 2021 of the consequences of any leakage of oil from the Safer oil tanker, which is anchored off the coast of Yemen.  She said that millions of people could be exposed to harmful pollution if an explosion were to occur onboard, with severe health impacts for vulnerable populations.  Additionally, an oil spill would have negative impact on the lives of people already going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, she stressed.

For her part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Director of Operations and Advocacy, Reena Ghelani, speaking on behalf of UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, told the Council that the bottom line was that, so far, no UN mission had been allowed to deploy to the vessel.  She said that’s mostly because the Ansar Allah (also known as Houthi) authorities, while always agreeing to a mission in principle, have been reluctant to provide the concrete assurances needed to proceed, adding that because the UN had never been allowed to visit the site, “we do not know exactly what the conditions are like onboard”.  That means it’s impossible to say in advance exactly what activities can be performed.

Also read: “By the grace of God, there has not been a major leak in the ‘Safer’ tanker”

Terming the Safer as a dangerous site, she pointed out that it has had essentially no maintenance for more than six years. “From what we can gather, the physical structure is degrading; the underlying systems don’t work; and there is a good chance flammable gases are building up in some places,” she warned, adding that experts need to verify “what we’re dealing with and assess what can be done safely”. The assessment will provide impartial evidence on the options to resolve the problem once and for all,  she added.

Matin Griffiths, United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, who is also coordinating closely the US envoy to Yemen, has said that  the Houthis, were refusing to engage. He was in Yemen’s capital Sana’a and met with the leader of Ansar Allah just a few days ago. “I can only speak for the UN side.  We spoke…  Mr. Griffiths spoke with Mr. [Abdel Malik] al-Houthi, with the head of Ansar Allah.  He gave a press conference in Sana’a before leaving.  His assessment of that meeting, I think, is clear…,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said at the United Nations headquarters.

Griffith had said on June 1, 2021 that “Nobody can be more frustrated than I am.” He had mentioned that een after spending a year and a half “on things which are relatively simple to describe, the cease-fire, the opening of Sana’a Airport, the opening of Hodeida ports, the much-delayed start of the political negotiations”.

Dujarric reiterated: “We’ve been engaged…we work closely with the US envoy and others.  I think everybody is working towards the same goal, right — ensuring that the bombs and the rockets and the violence stop so the people of Yemen can come back to some semblance of normality, given already their tragic situation.”

Reena Ghelani, reminded the Security Council that over the past two years, Under-Secretary-General Lowcock had briefed the Council 23 times on the Safer tanker, “including at a dedicated session like this one last July”. She remarked: “With 23 briefings behind us, progress – needless to say – has been much slower than anyone would have wanted.”

While claiming that the Ansar Allah authorities, “while always agreeing to a mission in principle”, had been reluctant to provide the concrete assurances needed to proceed, she pointed out that the UN wrote to Ansar Allah two months ago to clarify exactly what was needed for the mission to deploy. “Project donors sent a similar letter, and several Member States have been raising it directly as well. Over the last 10 days, there have also been extensive discussions to try to bridge the remaining gaps. But so far these efforts have not succeeded. The main sticking point seems to be what, exactly, the UN mission will do and – more specifically – why the United Nations cannot agree more in terms of repairs.”

He pointed out that “Ansar Allah at the time accepted the scope of work back in November. However, it now seems they are unhappy with this”.

She assured that the UN expert team remains ready to deploy, “as they have been for the last two years”. The UN will keep that team on standby for as long as we have donor funding to do so. “Some of those funds, however, will start running out soon, so we hope things will start moving much, much faster,” she said.

– global bihari bureau