Abdulsalam Holds Aggression Forces All Repercussions for Any Leakage from Safer Tanker

The head of the National Delegation Mohammed Abdulsalam blamed, Saturday, the forces of US-Saudi aggression for all the consequences of any leakage from the Safer floating storage.

“From an early stage, we have been calling for the maintenance of the Safer tanker, but the US-backed forces of aggression have deliberately, with its unjust besieged, put obstacles and prevented any maintenance,” Abdulsalam wrote in a post published on his Twitter page.

“The forces of aggression bear all the consequences of any leakage.”

The head of the National Delegation affirmed that Washington also bears responsibility for providing political cover and military support for the continuation of the aggression and the siege.

The coalition countries refuse the entry of the technical team entrusted with maintenance work according to the United Nations, to carry out the maintenance of the Safer tank, which contains an amount exceeding more than one million barrels of crude oil. This threatens an imminent environmental disaster due to an oil spill that may reach the Mediterranean and the Arabian Seas.

The Safer, once Yemen’s main oil export facility, is a floating storage and offloading vessel moored about 50 kilometres north-west of Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah, the entry point for most of the  country’s humanitarian aid and imports. It contains more than 147 million barrels of crude oil and has had no maintenance for nearly five years, allowing explosive gases to build up in its storage tanks.

The Safer found itself with its large crew in a state of siege within the massive siege imposed on Yemen, which caused the suspension of its activity and then prevented the supply of the necessary fuel for its operation. Experts have been warning for more than a year that the vessel needs urgent maintenance, with a report by the US think tank the Atlantic Council calling it a floating bomb.