Yemen is in the middle of a civil war – the Saudi-backed, Yemeni government have been fighting with Iranian-backed, Houthi rebels since 2014. Throw in the presence of unaligned tribal groups and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and this has become one of the most intractable conflicts of the past decade. Stranded in the Red Sea near Yemen’s war zone, there is an oil supertanker holding more than one million barrels of oil – which, the U.N. has warned, could explode or sink and create a “catastrophic situation” where thousands could die.
For context, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989, it spilled about a quarter of the oil that this ship, the F.S.O. Safer, is holding. Before the war started, the company that owns the ship spent $20m a year keeping it maintained and staffed it with a crew of 50 people. Now, they can only afford to make the most urgent of repairs and make do with a crew of seven. Since 2017, the ship has had no power after the steam boilers ran out of fuel.
If the ship were to sink, and this is becoming more likely as the steel hull is corroding as are its many pipes and valves, this would be catastrophic for the Red Sea ecosystem and global shipping. An estimated 10% of the world’s cargo passes through a Strait just off the Red Sea and these ships would be unlikely to pass through oil-contaminated waters. So concerned are governments around the world, that earlier this year the U.K. government commissioned a report outlining possible outcomes of an explosion or sinking of the Safer.
For a country that has suffered through 7 years of civil war, mass starvation on the back of one of the worst famines of our time and a lack of foreign aid made more difficult by mined waters and port blockades, this is the last thing they need. Yet, as the condition of the ship continues to deteriorate and the civil war stretches on with no end in sight, the F.S.O. Safer could be joining the Exxon Valdez and Ever Given as famous shipping disasters of the past few decades.
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