(Photo Credit : IANS)
On 22 November, the head of the Yemeni Ansarallah group, Abdulaziz bin Habtoor, threatened to target oil ships “directly” in the ports under the control of the Saudi-backed government, according to Sputnik Arabic news.
In statements to Al-Masirah TV, Bin Habtoor said, “In the coming times, we will not warn the ships, but rather we will strike them directly, and the world should know that we will not let our people starve while they tamper with the wealth of Yemen.”
“We exercise our right to defend our interests and the wealth of the Yemeni people, and those affiliated with the aggression coalition are stealing the people’s money. The aggression’s mercenaries have looted more than $14 billion in oil and gas revenues and deposited them in the National Bank of Saudi Arabia without paying the employees’ salaries,” he added.
Meanwhile, on 21 November, the Yemeni armed forces forced an oil ship that tried to approach the port of Al-Dabba in the south of the country to leave,” according to Yahya Saree, spokesman for the armed forces affiliated with Ansarallah.
“The ship refused to respond to the warnings, and the enemy tried to take measures,” adding that “we were able to monitor it and deal with it appropriately.”
Since the start of the UN-mediated truce, the Saudi-led coalition has been accused of looting $919.6 million worth of Yemen’s crude oil and natural gas revenues.
On 6 September, the Yemeni government accused the Saudi-led aggression coalition of seizing two fuel ships headed for the Hodeidah port in western Yemen, raising the captured tanker ships to 12.
The Yemeni Petroleum Company (YPC) spokesman in Sanaa, Issam al-Mutawakel, said that “the coalition of aggression, led by America (USA) and in collaboration with the United Nations, continues to violate the temporary truce by seizing two UN-authorized gasoline ships” were heading to Hodeidah’s port.
Al-Mutawakel revealed that the total number of fuel ships seized by the aggression coalition has now reached 12.
He considered the looting of fuel ships as a breach of the armistice terms that further exacerbated the suffering of the Yemeni people.
Al-Mutawakel accused the United Nations of “complicity through its shameful silence” about the intransigence of the coalition and its continued restriction of the Yemeni people.