In Pakistan, expanding Gwadar port reduces fishers to oil smugglers
· Scroll
Friday 12 June was a hot day in the south-western Pakistani city of Gwadar. Shamsul Haq Kalmati went to the beach for his usual morning walk but was shocked by something new.
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“My friend noticed something wrong and told me to look at the bottom of my shoes. They were covered in oil,” he says. “Looking around, we realised it was not just my shoes.”
The city’s entire coast was coated with dark oil.
Local officials warned the 20 kilometre-long slick posed threats to the local fishing industry and marine life. The threats did not take long to manifest: a sea turtle was soon found dead, half-buried in oily sand.
Government authorities are still trying to ascertain the causes of last month’s spill. Abdul Rahim Baloch, the Gwadar Development Authority’s deputy environment director, says fighting in the Gulf may have caused it. Tankers carrying crude oil are being attacked in the conflict between Iran, the US and Israel. Others suspect the smuggling that carries oil from Iran to Pakistan.
Gwadar, in the province of Balochistan, is situated near the strait of Hormuz. Around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil was shipped through this passage prior to February, when the US and Israel began attacking Iran. But it is not just this proximity...