UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A United Nations (UN) inspection team is ready to assess the derelict tanker Safer anchored off the coast of Yemen with 1.1 million barrels of oil threatening the region's environment, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.
"We have a technical assessment team in Djibouti to look at the issue of the Safer tanker," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "We expect the assessment to start either later this week or early next week."
Published reports said the tanker is located several kilometers outside Yemen's Red Sea port of Ras Isa, north of Hodeidah, and had been serving as a floating storage for oil transfers.
Both the government of Yemen and the Houthi rebels have requested assistance with the issue, Dujarric said.
The Safer holds about 1.1 million barrels of oil, said the spokesman, adding that it has not had any maintenance since 2015.
"I think it doesn't take much imagination to see what environmental catastrophe could behold if something were to happen to the tanker," he said.
The aim of this first mission is to conduct a technical assessment and to perform some initial basic maintenance if possible, the spokesman said. Results of the inspection will clarify what will need to be done technically to strengthen the tanker as soon as possible.
In June, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, warned the Security Council, "If the tanker ruptures or explodes, we could see the coastline polluted all along the Red Sea."
"Depending on the time of year and water currents, the spill could reach from Bab-el-Mandeb to the Suez Canal -- and potentially as far as the Strait of Hormuz," added Lowcock, who is also the world organization's emergency relief coordinator.
Bab-el-Mandeb is the strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
"If a major spill occurs, the world will surely demand answers from anyone who could have prevented the catastrophe but chose not to," Lowcock said.
