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UN urges Houthis to permit inspection of aging oil tanker

The Houthis, who control access to the FSO Safer, have prevented the UN from sending a technical team to assess the risk of a potential massive oil spill.
Hodeidah's port

The United Nations is again calling on Yemen’s Houthi rebels to cooperate with UN inspectors who need urgent access to a dilapidated oil tanker moored off the country’s Red Sea coast. 

The FSO Safer holds 1.1 million barrels of oil, enough to spill four times as much oil into the sea than was spilled from the Exxon Valdez tanker in 1989. Experts say that time is running out to prevent a massive spill, which would devastate biodiversity in the Red Sea, disrupt one of the world’s busiest commercial trade routes and deepen Yemen’s already dire humanitarian crisis. 

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