The Oil Tanker Waiting to Ruin Yemen's Coast

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Idrees Ahmad
@im_PULSE
When Yemen’s war broke out in 2015, workers were told to abandon the SAFER oil tanker. Since then, “the fate of the ship has been at the mercy of God and the sea.” By @lyllayounes for @newlinesmag.

The Oil Tanker Waiting to Ruin Yemen's Coast | Newlines Magazine
newlinesmag.com

https://t.co/V9ZnvHxv9f?amp=1

Snip
At the crossroads of Saudi Arabia’s bloody campaign in Yemen, a steady stream of arms from the United States, Iran’s uncertain shadow over the peninsula, and the al-Houthi rebels’ battle for political supremacy, lies a ship.

The vessel, moored 4 miles off the Ras Isa port in Yemen, was used as a storage terminal for crude oil until 2015, when it was abandoned after much of Yemen’s western coastline fell under the control of al-Houthi rebels. Neglected and without maintenance for over five years in the hot, saline waters of the Red Sea with over 1 million barrels of crude onboard, the “SAFER” — its English transliterated name — has decayed rapidly, threatening an oil spill four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.

None of the countries bordering the Red Sea is more vulnerable to a SAFER spill than Yemen. A huge contamination of oil threatens to upend every layer of the war-torn country’s fragile socio-environmental system, from its mangrove swamps and bountiful fish stocks to its largest port in Al Hudaydah, where virtually all of the nation’s humanitarian aid arrives. But other countries would be affected, too. Predictive models indicate that in the event of a major oil spill, slicks could travel up the Saudi coast and into the center of the Red Sea, impacting Egypt’s marine tourism industry. Some experts have warned that the oil could travel as far as the Gulf of Aqaba, destroying the only coral reefs in the world predicted to survive beyond the middle of the 21st century.

Despite these risks, the challenging political climate in the region has led to years of inaction as the vessel slides further into disrepair. The SAFER crisis would only be the latest — and possibly the most egregious — example of the willingness of regional actors to put the environment and the people who rely on it in extreme danger to maintain a status quo that is favorable to their geopolitical interests.