[02/11/2020 01:56]

ADEN - SABA
Yemen’s Minister of Oil said the condition of the dangerously decaying Yemeni oil tanker in the Red Sea is getting worse due to the Houthi militia’s obstinacy in disallowing international maintenance experts aboard.

Eng. Aws al-Awd said the tanker laden with 1.4 million barrels of crude oil is “getting worse” as it gets rustier as time goes on without maintenance, “which courts disastrous consequences.”

“As the world watches the expected environmental and economic catastrophe” from a possible leakage or explosion of the tanker, the militia maintains its “maximalist rejection to emptying the vessel” which it has held hostage since 2015.

Among the numerous disastrous results expected in case of oil spill is the extermination of biodiversity in more than 100 Yemeni islands on the Red Sea, the minister said.

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