Who is responsible for the Safer ship crisis?

Research and Information Center: Zaid Al-Mahbashi

From an early age we have been calling for the maintenance of Safer’s tanker, but the American-backed aggression forces deliberately besieged the unjust barriers and put obstacles in place and prevented any maintenance, and accordingly it is the one who bears all the repercussions of any leakage, and that Washington also bears responsibility for providing political cover and military support to continue the aggression and the siege .. Muhammad Al-Salam.

The crimes of the aggression alliance forces in Yemen did not stop killing and detaining the fishermen, cutting their livelihoods, confiscating their boats, killing fish and marine life, stealing unique marine life with coasts, islands, and Yemeni waters, using them as dumping sites for burying chemical waste, bulldozing and stealing coral reefs, and chaotic fishing threatening to disrupt the marine life balance The maritime system, Wu, even went beyond that to what is more abhorrent in the history of the crimes of the occupation forces and tyranny throughout human history, through criminal planning from the first day of their sinful aggression on Yemen, to put Yemen and the entire region from the Strait of Hormuz to the Suez Canal on the crater of Berkane It may take more than 150 years to recover from it.

That volcano is the tanks of the Saffer floating / still ship in Ras Issa port, and indeed the huge floating bomb in the Red Sea, as described by the American organization The Atlantic Council in April 2019.

With the beginning of the storm coalition aggression against Yemen on March 26, 2015, the attention of the aggressor countries turned to the Yemeni coasts, islands and ports before the Yemeni interior, because of their geopolitical and economic importance, and to facilitate this mission, those countries worked to strike a stifling sea blockade in the hope of killing the Yemeni people with hunger, and creating Time bombs, to show them in the face of this patient and steadfast people whenever the forces of aggression find themselves in a military or political predicament.

One of the most dirty and dangerous weapons of the aggression forces is preventing technical teams from carrying out maintenance work in the Saffer floating tanks off the waters of Ras Isa port in the Red Sea, after work stopped on the ship as a result of the aggression plane targeting the Ras Issa facility, and preventing its operation and preventing the depletion of its oil reserves for the fifth year Respectively, with the increasing local and international warnings about the erosion and rust of the tanks, and the increasing fears of oil leakage and exploding at any moment, threatening marine pollution that may extend to more than 939 trillion square meters, thus placing the entire region and not just Yemen in the face of a regional environmental disaster Four times the size of the oil spill in Exxon Valdez, USA (Alaska 1989).

The explosion of shattered septic tanks and the leakage of their oil reserves into the sea water, simply means making the region in direct confrontation with the largest and most tragic environmental disaster in human history, according to the warning of the American Study Center “The Atlantic Council”, its devastating effects on marine life in the Yemeni territorial waters may remain for more From 150 years, and its explosion, according to local reports, threatens more than 150 thousand fishermen in Yemen alone, and threatens the lives of more than one million and 350 thousand families that depend on their livelihood for fishing as the only source of income, and affect 5 countries in the region, according to the Deputy Director General of the Yemeni Oil Company in Hodeidah, “Hani Alwan”.

These concerns come with the increasing appeals of the Saffer Company and the ministries of oil and foreign affairs in Sana’a and the rescue government for the United Nations and the international community, to intervene with the forces of aggression and the government of hotels loyal to hasten to rescue the floating ship Saffer, with increasing cracks and erosion in its tanks, as Sanaa put forward several initiatives to remedy the matter And find a satisfactory exit for all parties, to no avail.

While the United Nations was content with making miraculous promises, without exerting any pressure on the forces of aggression and their loyalists, who, as usual, disavowed the responsibility of the catastrophe made by their sinful aggression, reinforced by the protection of their shepherds in the Black House, Egypt, as usual, held the victim responsible for the rolling disaster and exonerated the forces of aggression.

In November 2016, the Oil Company in Sana’a accused the forces of aggression of preventing technical teams from accessing the ship or carrying out any maintenance for it, and from that day the Saffer static ship crisis began to present itself strongly to the global human conscience, without finding them listening ears in this deaf world. The situation is the same as inhumane crimes perpetrated by the womb of the storm coalition aggression in its forgotten war against Yemen and Yemenis.

Fears have increased recently after a hole in one of the tubes and sea water leakage into the engine room, which threatens to drown, leak or explode a ship whistling at any moment, and this means that the position of the ship entered the danger stage, which calls for the need to expedite the process of evaluation, maintenance and unloading of oil reserves before One of the largest environmental and economic disasters in the region and the world.

* Safer ship in brief

The floating oil vessel / vessel / tanker / tanks of Safer is located in Ras Isa Port, and it is named after the site where the oil was discovered for the first time in Yemen, and it is a floating dump tank and permanently installed in Yemeni waters opposite the Ras Isa Port, and it is the third largest oil port Floating in the world, which includes about 34 tanks, dedicated to storing crude oil, with different sizes and capacities, accommodating 3 million barrels of oil, manufactured in Japan in 1976, and owned by the Yemeni company Saffer Production and Exploration, and the company sent in 1988 to off the port Ras Issa, north of Al Hudaydah Governorate, is located 8 km / 4.8 nautical miles from the Yemeni coast on the Red Sea, and has a weight of about 410 thousand metric tons, and it is connected by an oil pipeline with fields Safer in the Ma’rib Governorate, a length of about 428 km.

The Saffer ship is the main export and unloading station for light crude oil extracted from Sector 18 in the Saffer District of Marib Governorate, and Sector 9 in the Malik District of Shabwa Governorate.

After the aggression of the Storm Alliance, March 26, 2015, it was not possible to export its oil reserves, estimated at one million and 278 thousand barrels of crude oil, with an estimated value of about $ 60 million, according to oil prices in July 2019, and employees were withdrawn from them and the completion of periodic maintenance work, which cost the Yemeni treasury annually about $ 10 million, and the coalition prevented the maintenance teams from reaching it, prevented it from providing the necessary diesel to operate it, and prevented the discharge of the oil in it, despite local and international appeals, especially with the end of its shelf life before 10 years 2011, and its internal boilers “boilers” stopped producing gas Inert in tank tanks, and its importance lies in working to prevent any explosion or any chemical reaction that leads to the explosion, as a result of the gases emitted from the oil stored in the ship, due to the lack of fuel oil needed to operate these boilers, threatening the occurrence of oil leakage or accumulation Highly flammable gases, and thus the ship’s explosion, as a result of the formation of hydrocarbon gases emitted from crude oil in these tanks, and the occurrence of an environmental and economic disaster that could cause Yemen to lose millions of dollars. For dollars.

The British Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) stresses that the lack of fuel oil simply means that the engines of the Saffer tank have not been operating for several years, which has caused the structure to be exposed to moisture and corrosion with a scarcity of maintenance, with a single structure, which may be at risk.

* Appeals and initiatives

The appeals of the officials of the Salvation Government in Sana’a and the company Saffer to the international community to save the Saffir ship for the fifth year in a row, and warning against the stoppage of work on it, did not stop with catastrophic consequences, but all these warnings did not find listening ears at the moment, the last of which was the appeal of the Ministry of Oil and Minerals in Sanaa in a statement It has on May 9, 2020 the United Nations represented by its office in Yemen, and all international organizations to play its responsible and humanitarian role in protecting the ship from any targeting by aggression countries, and pressure to allow the sale of crude oil in it, and benefit from the revenue in establishing alternative oil tanks, as it has become Worn out and maintenance work stalled, and blamed the United Nations and the coalition, “full responsibility for an environmental catastrophe in the Red Sea up to the Suez Canal, and damage to marine life, due to any oil spill.”

During his meeting with the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Liz Grande, December 13, 2019, the Minister of Oil and Minerals of the Salvation Government had warned that failure to maintain the “Safir” tank had become a time bomb threatening the marine environment in the region, and the UN coordinator promised on more than one occasion to intervene and perform maintenance Urgently to no avail, and until this moment the United Nations has not put any pressure on the forces of aggression and the hotel government to allow the ship to be serviced.

The US State Department, in turn, rushed to hold the rescue government responsible for the disaster resulting from the ship’s explosion or oil leakage, due to the fact that it fell within the scope of its fiery control, which Sana’a strongly denied, expressing its readiness to repair the ship and sending the technical teams assigned to it in the eyes of the United Nations. Its suffocating siege on the coasts of Yemen, by air and sea, prevents technical teams from reaching the ship until the moment.

Whereas, in its Resolution No. 2511 of February 25, 2020, the UN Security Council stressed for the first time since the beginning of the Safer ship crisis, the environmental risks and the need to be made available without delay to the arrival of United Nations personnel to inspect and maintain the ship, which is a single orphan signal and has no effects on the ground , Which makes the United Nations and the Security Council primarily responsible for the consequences of the explosion or spill of a ship’s oil spilled alongside the United States of America.

In terms of initiatives:

Sana’a launched several initiatives to avoid the danger posed to everyone without exception, most notably:

1- The initiative of the martyr President Saleh Saleh al-Samad in early 2017, which includes giving the United Nations a role to work to allow the export of the ship’s oil reserves and their sale in exchange for medicines for the Yemeni people.

2- Asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Salvation Government on November 4, 2018, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to press for permission to use the ship’s oil to generate electricity for Yemeni cities, in order to alleviate the humanitarian situation, and avoid the environmental disaster that may be caused by any oil leakage from it.

3- Calling a member of the Supreme Political Council, “Muhammad Ali Al Houthi,” on May 1, 2019, the United Nations and the International Security Council, to put in place a mechanism based on the sale of Yemeni crude oil, including the ship’s saffer oil, in exchange for providing and importing petroleum, diesel and domestic gas, and returning what is sold to The banks of Sana’a and Aden, and allocating that to the salaries of employees of their control.

All of them were met by the hostile states and the government of the hotels with refusal, not interested in the catastrophic consequences of this refusal.

* Effects and repercussions

Numerous local and international reports have spoken of a long list of effects and risks resulting from the possibility of an explosion or sinking of a ship whistle or spillage of its oil, God forbid, from that to a brief summary:

1 – Loss and destruction of the North San Kamran Island due to its location near the ship, which is one of the islands rich with mangroves, coral reefs and many types of fish and sharks, an important tourist interface for diving, and an excellent fishing center.

2 – Coral reefs lose their natural habitat, coral mortality, and the lack of renewal of most organisms in their ecosystem.

Coral reefs are the breeding grounds for fish and small plankton, which are the staple food for large fish.

3- Damage to phytoplankton and algae, which is primarily responsible for stabilizing energy in the marine environment.

4 – Catastrophic repercussions on sharks, molluscs and other marine organisms, drinking and desalination water, birds and fish farms, navigational services, beaches, boat moorings, ports, cornices, coasts, and salt production.

5 – Damage to the bottom, due to the deposition of heavy parts of oil in the depths of the sea, and this has a long-term impact, and the process of treating it is difficult, complicated and costly.

6- Leaving grave damages to the health of the residents in the nearby regions, where field studies expect two thirds of the leaked and spilled amount from the reservoir to evaporate in the sea water within days when the leak occurs, in addition to the accompanying gases that will result from it, which will spread in the air, and the residents inhale it, which It causes a lot of respiratory troubles and diseases.

* References:

– Sputnik, Warnings of Yemeni Floating Oil Port Explosion and Environmental Disaster Threatening the Red Sea, 24 July 2019

– Yemeni revolution newspaper, Safir Reservoir … a global catastrophe for the aggression, July 27, 2019

– Yemeni Press, warning of imminent global marine catastrophe to be launched from the Red Sea, July 29, 2019

– Abdel-Qader Othman, Yemen’s floating bomb … an environmental catastrophe that threatens the Arabian Peninsula, Darj site, September 5, 2019

– Arabi Post, the story of the ship that has not moved from its place in 5 years, 27 December 2019

– Yemen Monitor, “Saffer Floating Tank” cracks causing disaster in Yemeni islands, May 15, 2020

Aden Times, Safer ship .. “Time bomb” off the coast of Hodeidah, 1 June 2020