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The United Nations Security Council referred to as for quick motion to stop an oil tanker holding greater than 1.1 million barrels off Yemen from leaking.
The council on Wednesday urged Houthi rebels controlling the Red Sea waters the place the ship’s situated to permit a UN group to inspect it. Mark Lowcock, the UN’s head of humanitarian assist, stated a group might be despatched inside weeks.
The Yemeni authorities, which has been battling the Houthis in a civil warfare since 2015, stated Tuesday the oil wanted to be offloaded to stop an environmental disaster and stated the insurgent group was utilizing the tanker for “political blackmail.”
“The international community has to put an end to this looming disaster,” Naser Al-Sharif, Yemen’s vice minister of transport, stated in an interview. “This is a time-bomb.”
Repairing the decaying tanker, referred to as Safer and moored off Hodiedah province, would price tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, in accordance to Abdulwahed Al-Obaly, an unbiased Yemeni financial researcher. There’s been no upkeep work for 5 years and it’s been out of service for 10 years, he stated.
The Houthis instructed this week that the UN might assess the ship’s situation. Lowcock stated they’ve given comparable assurances earlier than, solely to backtrack.
In the previous, the Houthis have additionally demanded that the saved oil is bought and the cash positioned in a central-bank account below their management. The rebels would wrestle to promote the crude with out UN approval as a result of worldwide patrons are cautious of coping with them, partly as a result of they’re backed by Iran.
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