UN falls short of raising funds needed to offload decaying tanker off Yemen

By Betul Yuruk

UNITED NATIONS (AA) - The United Nations has failed to raise the funds needed to start offloading 1.1 million barrels of oil from a decaying tanker off the coast of war-torn Yemen to prevent a catastrophic spill.

Donors pledged $5.6 million at a fundraising event co-hosted by the UK and the Netherlands, but the UN still needs more money to transfer all the oil, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

''With that amount, the UN has now raised $105.2 million for the emergency phase of the operation to remove the oil from the FSO Safer,'' said the UNDP.

''This leaves $23.8 million for the emergency phase unfunded.''

The UN purchased a ship, the Nautica, in March that it hopes will avert an environmental disaster from the FSO Safer oil tanker.

Egypt, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, South Korea, the UK and private company Octavia Energy and its subsidiary, Calvalley Petroleum, announced pledges totaling almost $8 million, of which $5.6 million represents new funding.

''But we’re hopeful that as nations are aware of the need to avert a crisis in the Red Sea, they’ll come up with the funding we need,'' said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

The FSO Safer oil tanker is a floating storage and offloading unit located off the western coast of Yemen, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of the port of Al-Hudaydah. It is used for storing and exporting oil coming from oilfields in the oil-rich central province of Marib.

Now under the control of Houthi rebels, the tanker has not undergone maintenance since 2015 and more than 1 million barrels of crude oil have been sitting in the decaying vessel in the Red Sea.

A major spill would devastate fishing communities on Yemen's Red Sea coast, likely instantly wiping out 200,000 livelihoods, according to the UNDP.

The cost of cleanup of a potential oil spill alone is estimated at $20 billion.