It seems that the Safer oil tanker crisis will witness a breakthrough after Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a meeting point and agreed to resume diplomatic relations.
The Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, Dr. Abdul Hakim Al-Waer, expected a soon solution to the oil tanker crisis in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, due to the restoration of Saudi-Iranian relations.
Al-Waer said, in statements to the specialized energy platform, on the sidelines of a conference held by a group of international organizations led by the FAO in the Egyptian capital (Cairo) last week: “The meaning of the return of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is that the Safer oil tanker crisis will witness a breakthrough soon.”
The United Nations has been warning for several years of a massive oil spill that is 4 times more than the largest spill disaster the world has witnessed – which occurred in 1989 in the state of Alaska, known as “Exxon Valdez” – due to the huge tonnage of the Safer oil tanker, and its lack of maintenance for years. .
The treatment of the Safer oil tanker crisis faltered, due to the ongoing war in Yemen between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthi group.
Several UN attempts to deal with the Safer oil tanker failed, because the Houthi group repeatedly prevented UN experts from dealing with the tanker.
The latest proposed and deferred solution was to transfer about one million barrels from the Safer oil tanker to another ship, which would reduce its cargo of 3 million barrels.
Fund raising
In June 2022, the United Nations launched a new campaign to collect donations to help unload one million barrels from the Safer oil tanker, according to what was reported by the BBC at the time.
“The Safer oil tanker crisis will not be resolved if we continue to collect donations for 10 years and collect millions of dollars,” said the Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, Abdel Hakim Al-Waer.
He justified this with the conflict in Yemen, and the Houthi group’s repeated refusal to deal with the problem, saying, “But the return of friendship between Saudi Arabia and Iran means a near breakthrough.”
A few days before the ninth anniversary of the start of the conflict in Yemen at the end of last March, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the sudden return of relations between them to the world.
The Yemeni Ambassador to Cairo, Dr. Muhammad Ali Marem, participated in the conference of international organizations, which was held last week to present the “Regional Overview of the State of Food Security and Nutrition 2022” report, which revealed that hunger and malnutrition levels had reached critical levels in the Arab region.
The Yemeni ambassador demanded that these organizations proactive solutions to solve the problems of his country.
Food insecurity is a problem facing the majority of Yemenis, and a leak from the Safer oil tanker exacerbates the crisis, according to a report by the environmental organization Greenpeace in February 2022.
Whistled and food
Greenpeace said that a leakage from the Safer oil tanker would prevent access to Yemen’s main ports of Hodeidah and Saleef. affecting the supply of food aid for up to 8.4 million people, and its explosion contaminating water desalination plants on the coast; This could cut off the drinking water supply for about 10 million people.
Yemeni fisheries are also negatively affected. They are likely to be closed, and ecosystems in the Red Sea are expected to be destroyed, with potential impacts reaching Djibouti, Eritrea, and Saudi Arabia.
In his statements to the specialized energy platform, Al-Waer said, in response to a question about the proactive steps that (FAO) could implement, to avoid exacerbating the food crisis due to the expected leakage or explosion of the Safer oil tanker, that the organization provided its advice to the concerned parties.
He added, “This matter is dealt with by the United Nations Security Council, and there is an integrated team under the supervision of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Yemen working on this tanker, while ensuring that it does not have an environmental impact in this region.”
There is an entire organization called UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) – it has a body based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – that is concerned with the safety of the environment in the Red Sea and the preservation of biodiversity and coral reefs, and it monitors this matter directly and accurately.
Al-Waer said, “FAO contributed and gave its vision in this aspect.. The issue is not limited to FAO only, but to the entire international nation, and everyone knows the secrets of this matter.”
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