DUBAI: Claims of a breakthrough with Houthis regarding the Safer oil tanker in the Red Sea are misleading, according to a Yemeni minister.
“The Houthi militia are tampering with the issue and giving empty promises [to the UN] … [there was] no significant progress in the efforts to prevent an imminent environmental, economic and humanitarian catastrophe that threatens Yemen and the region,” Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryni said in a report from state news agency Saba.
Scientists have warned last December that the tanker was on the verge of creating one of the world’s biggest oil spills.
The Safer tanker holds one million barrels of oil – four times the amount that leaked from the Exxon Valdez in the catastrophic 1989 spill in Alaska.
The Houthi militia has repeatedly blocked experts from accessing the ship, which was abandoned in 2015.
