Can an environmental catastrophe in Yemen be averted?

Years of civil war have torn Yemen apart.
Fighting has divided the cities, destroyed the economy and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
And now, the country is on the verge of an environmental disaster.
For 5 years the oil tanker FSO SAFER has laid idle off the coast.
On board are more than 1.1 million barrels of oil.
As Yemen’s Houthi rebels battle with the Saudi-backed government for control of the country, the ship has been left to rust.
The United Nations has described the tanker as a ticking time bomb – one that will eventually cause an ecological and humanitarian disaster if nothing is done.
But who’s to blame?

Presenter: Laura Kyle
Guests
William Lawrence, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at American University.
Hussain Al Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi journalist.
Zeina Khalil Hajj, Executive Director of Greenpeace Middle East North Africa region.

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In This Story: Hajj

The Hajj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims, who visit the Kaaba, a cubic structure at the centre of the Grand Mosque.

Because the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Islamic year is about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year, the Gregorian date of Hajj changes from year to year. In 2020 AD (1441 AH), Dhu al-Hijjah extends from 22 July to 19 August.

According to the official published statistics between 2000 and 2019, the average number of attendees is 2,269,145 per year, in which 1,564,710 come from outside Saudi Arabia and 671,983 are local.

In June 2020, while not cancelling the Hajj outright, the Saudi Government announced that they would only welcome “very limited numbers” of pilgrims who are residents of Saudi Arabia due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.