The Yemeni armed forces announced that they have successfully prevented another foreign tanker from stealing “enormous” amounts of national oil off its southern coast on 21 November.

“The Yemeni armed forces succeeded in forcing an oil ship, which tried to reach the port of Al-Dabba in the south of the country, to leave,” the forces’ spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, tweeted on the same day.

Saree further ensured that the Yemeni army will continue to defend the nation and its national treasure [oil], so that it can be used to pay the salaries of employees across Yemen.

This is not the first time the Yemeni military intervenes to stop foreign vessels from attempting to loot national oil. Two weeks prior, in a similar incident, Yemeni soldiers managed to thwart a foreign oil tanker in the waters of the southern Shabwah Province as it attempted to smuggle hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil out of the country. 

This comes during a period when Yemeni and Saudi officials are engaging in continued “uninterrupted” peace talks in Oman since the expiration of the ceasefire on 2 October.

Recent pressure from the west on Yemen and Saudi Arabia for oil has come as a result of the oil supply cut by OPEC+, with Washington allegedly being fearful of any escalations between Sanaa and Riyadh as the west is struggling to prevent fuel prices from increasing.

However, Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement says that the US is trying to “impede” efforts to achieve peace, as it has continued to establish a military presence in the protection of its Saudi allies for years.

Human rights group, Entesaf Organization for the Protection of Women and Children’s Rights disclosed that the Saudi-led coalition’s war against Yemen has resulted in the killing of over 8,000 Yemeni minors.

The group further elaborated that the 2015 war killed 3,860 children and injured 4,256 more.  The report estimated that around 6,000 people have been handicapped as a result of the war.

Saudi-led military operations have also caused the internal displacement of 4.3 million Yemenis by March 2022. About 40 percent of them are living in unofficial displacement camps and do not have access to fundamental services.