Head of the Supervisory Committee for the Implementation of the Urgent Maintenance Agreement and Comprehensive Assessment of the Safer Floating Tank, Ibrahim al-Siraji, has on Thursday called on the United Nations to expedite the taking of urgent steps to implement the agreement.
The call came with the aim of preventing a cataclysmic environmental disaster in the Red Sea, which could happen at any moment.
Al-Siraji discussed the issue with the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, William David Grassley. At the meeting, al-Siraji expressed his astonishment at the continued disregard by the United Nations for the increasing possibilities of exposing the Red Sea environment to the risk of intense pollution if the FSO Safer oil tanker were to sink and spill its content of 1.14 million barrels worth of oil into the ocean.
As a result of the UN retraction of its Office for Project Services from implementing the urgent maintenance agreement that is needed to keep the oil storage unit afloat, the Safer remains at an absolutely critical risk of imminent leaking.
Ibrahim al-Siraji said that “the matter can no longer tolerate further delays, [especially now that we’re] more than a year after the signing of the agreement.”
For his part, Grassley confirmed that he would work to correct the path to find appropriate solutions, with regard to the maintenance and evaluation of the Safer floating oil tank.
