Over 18mln Barrels of Yemeni Oil Looted by Saudi Last Year: Ministry
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Countries of the Saudi-led coalition and their hired mercenaries looted more than 18 million barrels of Yemen’s oil exports last year, the country’s oil ministry affiliated with the Houthis said.
Speaking at a press conference in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Saturday, Oil Minister Ahmed Daris said the coalition “looted more than 18 million barrels of oil exports last year and sent their money to the Saudi National Bank," Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported.
Daris also called on the United Nations to shoulder its responsibility in facilitating the release of oil shipments detained by the Saudi-led coalition waging war on the impoverished nation.
He warned the Saudi-led coalition that the continued detention of the oil tankers would further motivate Yemeni people to join anti-Saudi frontlines.
“Free oil tankers, our people will not surrender to the continued detention, but this will be an incentive to move to frontlines,” he said.
Saudi Arabia and its allies launched military campaign on Yemen in March 2015 with the aim of reinstalling the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of about 56,000 Yemenis.
The kingdom has also imposed an all-out blockade on Yemen, which according to the UN is now the scene of the world’s worst man-made crisis.