Fear of an oil spill on the Tunisian coast after the sinking of an oil tanker


A boat sank this Saturday morning in Tunisian waters, taking with it the 750 tonnes of diesel on board. If there is currently no leak, the authorities are on alert to prevent the risk of pollution.

Will an environmental catastrophe be avoided in the Mediterranean? An oil tanker carrying 750 tonnes of diesel was wrecked on Saturday in the Gulf of Gabes, on the southeastern coast of Tunisia. “The ship sank this morning in Tunisian territorial waters. For the moment, there is no leak”, assured a spokesperson for the court of Gabès. According to this spokesperson, Mohamed Karray, a “Commission for disaster prevention will meet in the next few hours to decide on the measures to be taken”.

Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui is “on the way” to assess the situation after the sinking and will take “the necessary preventive decisions in coordination with the regional authorities”, according to a press release from his ministry. The risk of an oil spill hovers. The authorities acted “the national emergency plan for the prevention of marine pollution with the aim of controlling the situation and avoiding the spread of pollutants”.

Crew evacuated

The tanker xelo, 58 meters long and 9 meters wide, according to the Vesseltracker site, and flying the flag of Equatorial Guinea, had left Egypt to reach Malta. To take shelter from bad weather conditions, the ship had asked to enter Tunisian territorial waters on Friday evening.

While about 7 km off the coast of the Gulf of Gabes, the tanker began to take on water, according to the ministry. It infiltrated the engine room, rising to nearly two meters in height. The Tunisian authorities then evacuated the crew of seven people on board the ship in distress.

According to the court spokesman, the crew members, consisting of a Georgian captain, four Turks and two Azerbaijanis, were briefly “hospitalized for controls and are accommodated in a hotel”.

Important fishing area

The Ministries of Defence, Interior, Transport, as well as Customs are working to avoid “a marine environmental disaster in the region and to limit its repercussions”, assured the Ministry of the Environment. When the ship had not yet sunk, the ministry had described the ship’s situation as “alarming” but “under control”.

The Gabes region is traditionally an important fishing area but it has suffered in recent years, according to several NGOs, from episodes of pollution. These are due to the phosphate processing industries that are installed there and to the presence of an oil pipeline carrying oil from southern Tunisia.

The last maritime accident concerning Tunisia dates from October 2018, when a Tunisian ro-ro ship L’Ulysse collided with a Cypriot container ship CLS Virginia 28 km off Cap Corse, France. At the time, a slick of 600 tonnes of propulsion fuel had escaped from the Cypriot container ship, which had required the intervention of French and Italian ships and the European Maritime Agency to limit marine pollution.



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