The cargo ship that will store the dangerous crude from the oil tanker Safer, stranded in Yemen, leaves Djibouti

July 15 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The freighter ‘Nautica’ left Djibouti this Saturday with the mission of storing the million liters of crude oil contained in the tanker ‘Safer’, stranded for years in war-torn Yemen and which represents the greatest ecological threat to the regional ecosystem.

The ‘Safer’ has been entrenched on the coast of the port city of Hodeida since the start of the war in late 2014 between the Yemeni government and the Huthi insurgency. The lack of maintenance unleashed the alarm voice in the international community before a possible rupture of the ship with the consequent catastrophe for the ecosystem of the Red Sea.

Now, after the completion of the technical preparations, the United Nations rescue mission has announced the departure of ‘Nautica’ to begin the transfer of the 1.1 million liters of crude; a task that will take two weeks to complete.

The operation will be carried out by pumping from ship to ship while the salvage company SMIT monitors the stability of the ‘Safer’, according to the United Nations statement collected by the pan-Arab chain Al Arabiya. The first immediate step is the placement of a special buoy so that the ‘Nautica’ remains completely immobile during the operation and thus avoid a possible spillage during the firefighter.

The administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Achim Steiner, expects the transfer tasks to begin next week. “Removing the threat posed by ‘Safer’ represents a huge achievement for the people who have been working tirelessly for years on this difficult and complex project,” he says.