Contrary to what the Zionist enemy, the United States, and their partners hoped to achieve by turning to the so-called UN Panel of Experts to distort Yemen’s stance in support of Gaza, foreign experts have debunked the panel’s claims regarding Yemen’s imposing fees on ships for passage. This clearly exposes the falsehoods in the panel’s report and the hostile objectives behind its issuance.

British expert in maritime security and law, Stephen Askins, dismissed the UN panel’s claims that Sana’a collects $180 million monthly in fees for allowing ships to pass through the Red Sea as “a big claim” and difficult to believe.
Writing on LinkedIn, Askins, who previously worked with the UN panel, stated, “I know how difficult that would be from a legal, regulatory, and logistical perspective.”

He added, “I have advised shipowners frustrated by attacks on their ships in the Red Sea and wrote to the Houthi humanitarian operations center seeking safe passage, which was granted.”

Askins said he had never heard of any company transferring funds to Sana’a for passage. “If shipping companies were paying such amounts, I would have known about it,” he remarked, indicating his familiarity with the Red Sea situation.

He further elaborated, “Shipowners are making decisions to avoid certain areas, bearing costs, and some are having their ships idled because they do not want to go there, losing charter contracts at considerable expense. But would this drive them to pay fees to an organization banned by the U.S. and the U.K., without hope of evading insurance? I don’t believe it.”

“My conclusion is that the shipping industry is not paying $180 million monthly to the Houthis, including shipowners and their private insurance companies,” Askins said, adding, “I don’t see how that could be true.”

Interestingly, the UN panel itself admitted in its report that it could not verify these allegations, yet chose to include them as if they were facts. This exposes the deliberate attempt to defame Yemen’s position in support of Gaza and to spread lies that the enemy’s media and its agents failed to circulate over the past year.

This fabricated claim about Red Sea passage fees is indicative of the other baseless accusations in the UN panel’s misleading report, which merely reflects the UN’s continued alignment with U.S. and Zionist agendas, serving as a tool and voice for the enemy.

Al Masirah report