Arab News Japan

DUBAI: Japan grants Yemen with an aid in an effort to resolve the environmental damage the Safer causes in the Red Sea under the Grand Aid Project “the Project for Preventing Oil Spill from the Floating Storage and Offloading Safer.”

Gathered in the headquarters of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York, SHINO Mitsuko, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary and deputy permanent representative of Japan to the United Nations, and Abdallah Al Dardari, assistant secretary-general and director of the regional bureau for Arab States, exchanged notes on the project.

The safer is a floating storage and offloading facility moored in the Red Sea off the west coast of Yemen.

Due to the lack of proper maintenance as well as the aging of the facility, the risk of spilling oil into the sea increased, resulting in drastic humanitarian and environmental crisis, such as large-scale marine environmental pollution and paralysis of marine traffic.

In response, the UNDP led a response plan to help resolve the issue; the plan is underway and includes the transshipment of oil from the safer to an alternative facility.

The United Nations has been discussing the issue as an urgent matter, and with the aid of Japan, a non-permanent member of the security council, will contribute to the resolution of the issue by providing a grant aid worth of 141 million yen.