UNITED NATIONS: UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly said, funding and prompt action are vital to preventing a massive oil spill from an ageing ship anchored on Yemen's shore.

Gressly reportedly called the FSO Safer off Yemen's Red Sea coast as a "time bomb" that poses a hazard. The 45-year-old floating storage and offloading facility has a capacity of 1.1 million barrels of oil, which is four times that of the Exxon Valdez, the tanker that produced one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.

It is in danger of leaking a large amount of oil or exploding, resulting in a massive spill. "If the spill occurs, it will unleash a major ecological and humanitarian disaster concentrated on a country that has already been ravaged by more than seven years of conflict," Gressly warned.

For more than 30 years, the FSO Safer has remained moored 4.8 nautical miles off Yemen's west coast, off the Ras Issa peninsula. Due to the conflict between a pro-government Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels in 2015, production, offloading, and maintenance ended, and the vessel is now beyond repair.  Gressly warned that a major spill would have catastrophic effects for Yemen and the rest of the world.

200,000 livelihoods might be lost in an already war-torn and crisis-plagued country, and people would be exposed to life-threatening poisons. He noted that a big oil spill would likely close the ports of Hodeidah and Saleef, at least temporarily, as crucial entry points for food, gasoline, and supplies.

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