UN says insurance coverage secured to salvage rusting oil tanker off Yemen

By SAMY MAGDY
Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations Development Program says it’s secured an insurance coverage to start a ship-to-ship transfer of 1.1 million barrels of crude from a rusting tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen — oil that could cause a major environmental disaster. The UNDP says the insurance is “a pivotal milestone” in a yearslong U.N.-led effort to evacuate the cargo of the FSO Safer, which is at risk of rupture or exploding. The U.N. has been trying to start a salvage operation to avert what it says could amount to “one of the world’s largest, man-made disasters in history.”