|
Iraqi Oil Tanker on Fire in Northern Gulf
MANAMA, Sept 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Iraqi tanker carrying 5,700 tons of smuggled crude oil was still on fire and sinking in northern Gulf waters, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet said Sunday, news agencies reported.
"The fire is still burning this morning," Commander Jeff Alderson told Agence France-Presse (AFP), stressing that the Honduras-registered "Khaled-1" remained the "responsibility of master and owner."
The Iraqi master and 14 crew members - four Iraqis, four Filipinos and six Indians - had been removed from the craft by members of the Multinational Interception Force (MIF) operating in the region enforcing the U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
The fire on the 104-meter (343-foot) long ship had been started by an electrical short-circuit, according to Alderson, AFP reported.
The vessel was intercepted on August 30th by the MIF - a U.S.-led, Western naval force that has enforced sanctions on Iraq at sea since the 1991 Gulf War - and was escorted to a holding area in northern Gulf waters, he said, without elaborating on the risk of an oil spill.
Abdul Munim al-Janahi, head of an emergency center run by the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME), said Saturday that the vessel was located some 66 nautical miles (122 kilometers) east of Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi oil terminal.
"The tanker has begun to sink and list to port, but its oil has not yet started leaking out," Janahi said.
The vessel was "old, and does not conform to international safety standards," he added.
The Gulf's fragile sea environment is frequently exposed to oil-tanker traffic and is subject to little environmental regulation.
Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since 1991 and is being subjected to daily U.S.-British air raids in the alliance imposed "no-fly zones."
Iraq and much of the international community have continuously demanded the lifting of sanctions imposed on it following its 1991 invasion of Kuwait. The devastating sanctions have created catastrophe-like conditions for the Iraqi people due to the embargo on food and medicine supplies.
According to a UNICEF report issued earlier, more than 567,000 Iraqi children have died as a consequence of the decade-long embargo.
"What we are seeing is a dramatic deterioration in the nutritional well-being of Iraqi children since 1991," said Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF representative in Baghdad.
The oil-for-food program allows Iraq to export crude in return for essential goods, as a humanitarian exemption to the sweeping embargo.
However, top ranking U.N. officials, Hans von Sponeck and Dennis Halliday, have resigned over the years in protest to the U.N. imposed program's failure to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people.
On June 4th, Iraq suspended more than two million barrels per day of oil exports in protest at U.S. and British plans to impose "smart" sanctions.
|
