After Houthi attack: Cargo ship with 41,000 tons of fertilizer sinks | DW News

A cargo ship attacked by houthi rebels in the Red Sea has sunk It’s the first vessel lost since the Yemen group began targeting commercial shipping that it says is linked to Israel the British owned ruar was carrying more than 40,000 tons of fertilizer when it was hit by a

Missile and began taking in water nearly two weeks ago Yemen’s internationally recognized government is warning that the sinking could cause an environmental catastrophe let’s bring in Julian dranti he’s the regional director for Greenpeace and joins me from the Lebanese Capital Beirut welcome to DW so a sunken vessel with more than

40,000 tons of fertilizer we just mentioned Yemen’s government warning of an environmental catastrophe so just how bad is this yeah let me first thank you for hosting me well it’s a it’s a million dollar question it’s very hard to answer this question because we really need to understand what the situation is we

Don’t have firsthand information of what the cargo is and how it is stored um the information that we’ve seen in the news is that it is most likely ammonium nitrate and there are a lot of risk associated with such spill we need to understand first that ammono nitrate is

A very um is a fertilizer with high acidity and therefore such risk can disrupt the pH balance uh of this Marine ecosystem and cause various effect on species in the water column uh Global ocean acidification is a global phenomena that we are currently experiencing due to uh excess CO2 in the

Atmosphere because of our addiction to fossil fuel and therefore such Global phenomena will be exacerbated by by such spills another important potential impact is uh the is that the large influx of nitrogen uh due to the spill in the Marine ecosystem will fuel what is called as algal bloom

And this algal bloom will create an imbalance as well in the Marine ecosystem and will have cascading effect throughout the food web and might therefore impact other species that are relying on this ecosystem so depending also on the sea current this alar Bloom can be can find itself near the coast

And could directly impact the precious corals of of the Red Sea by blocking direct sunlight from reaching them so really in essence a spill of of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the sea not only poses immediate risk of localized acidification and toxicity but also has the potential to to disrupt uh the

Delicate balance of marine ecosystems leading to harmful alal blooms and impacting various species within the ecosystem so this is clearly a very serious incident but is there anything that can be done is there a way to clean the water or purify it or somehow limit the damage so again it’s hard to tell

Because of the lack information and that’s why the immediate action that needs to be taken is to provide immediate access to the ship to the Shipwreck site uh for an expert for an expert response team to assess the situation and swiftly devise and Implement an emergency plan we need to

Understand um so what is the cargo on board is it only ammonium nitrate are there other toxic material or other material in in the cargo how well is the is the material stored is the material already leaking can it be retrieved so many unanswered question that we need

That we need to be answered as soon as possible that was Julian dranti from Greenpeace thank you so much my pleasure

A cargo ship attacked by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea has sunk. It’s the first vessel lost since the Yemeni group began targeting commercial shipping it says is linked to Israel.

The British-owned Rubymar was carrying more than 40-thousand tonnes of fertilizer when it was hit by a missile and began taking in water nearly two weeks ago. Yemen’s internationally-recognized government is warning the sinking could cause an environmental catastrophe.

For more we talk to Julien Jreissati. He is the regional director for Greenpeace and joins us from Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

#CargoShip #Houthi #RedSea

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish?sub_confirmation=1

For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
Follow DW on social media:
►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschewellenews/
►Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwnews
►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwnews
►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dwnews_hangout
Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie: https://www.youtube.com/dwdeutsch

28 comments

  3. Rubymar is flagged in Belize, its operators are from Lebanon and its registered owner is Golden Adventure Shipping from Southampton uk. It was carrying cargo from united arab Emirates to Bulgaria.

  7. Was it done by the same fugitive terrorists on Andromeda who not so long ago committed the bombing of Nord Stream 2?Against whom Denmark and Sweden closed the investigation

  9. بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
    قال الله تعالى
    ((۞وَهُوَ الَّذِي مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَيْنِ هَٰذَا عَذْبٌ فُرَاتٌ وَهَٰذَا مِلْحٌ أُجَاجٌ وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَهُمَا بَرْزَخًا وَحِجْرًا مَّحْجُورًا))
    صدق الله العظيم
    …
    في اختلاط ماء النهر العذب السائغ بماء البحر المِلح آيةٌ دالَّة على قدرة الله تعالى حين جعل بينهما حاجزًا يمنع إفسادَ أحدهما الآخر وتغيير صفته التي هو عليها، فسبحان الخالق العظيم

  10. More time spent discussing potential dead fish than actual 30'000+ dead Palestinian civilians. Pathetic.

    Scores of ships both military and cargo were sunk during WW2 and remain sunk until this day. If news reporters had then focused on the environmental impacts of sunken ships instead of the actual conflict and loss of life itself they would have been laughed at.

  12. I don't remember them interviewing green peace when the US blew up the Nordstream Pipeline causing the greatest environmental Catastrophe in history?

  13. The British ship carrying toxic materials was sunk without missiles in a deliberate incident to pollute the Red Sea by America and Britain. An urgent international investigation committee must be sent to inspect the ship, which did not show any external damage.

  18. That ship was a decoy the British intentionally put there so it can sink and cause a ecological damage and then blame it on houthis

  19. Does dropping more than thirty thousand tons of explosive materials on innocent Palestinian children and women in Gaza not pose a danger to you? (I am surprised that some people are racist)

  20. Why do people care about fish and pollution but not about the people in Gaza? Did you know that everyday Israel killing more children then fish in Gaza?

  28. The conspiracy theorist:

    where is U.S. China Russia and Iran? It’s bad for business for everyone. Especially for the Chinese. We watch Houthis like it’s some type of toddler commenting on their incompetence.

Leave a Reply