DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A mysterious attack on an Iranian oil refinery during the Iran war caused an oil spill that affected a nearby Persian Gulf island that's a protected breeding ground for wildlife, videos and satellite photos show.
The oil-soaked waves lapping onto Shidvar Island, an uninhabited island, represent yet another sign of the ecological damage wrought by the war. Oily rain has also fallen on the Iranian capital, Tehran, after
airstrikes targeted oil facilities there. Iranian attacks on ships passing through the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman also caused environmental damage.
Mobile phone footage shot April 9 by an Iranian named Ehsan Jalali shows thick black smoke rising after the strike on an oil refinery on Lavan, an island just off mainland Iran near Shidvar. The footage corresponds with known features of both islands and only was posted by Jalali to Instagram in the last few days as Iran's theocratic government has shut off access to the wider internet for weeks.
Other footage shot by Jalali shows a lifeless bird and crab covered in oil, while a man holds up a dead swordfish.
“Poor birds, look how they are stuck in oil. Look at the herd of dolphins. Poor things come to the surface to breathe, but they swallow oil,” Jalali narrates in the footage. “Look what they did to this island. Look what they have done. The corpses of fish are coming to the surface one by one.”
Photographs taken on April 10 from an Airbus DS Pléiades Neo, a high-resolution optical satellite, and analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the fire still burning at the refinery two days after the attack. An oil slick stains the surrounding waters of the Persian Gulf, wrapping around Shidvar Island, which is also known locally as Maroo Island.
“Oh my God, the sea is full of oil, oh my God, Maroo Island,” Jalali recounts in the footage. “The sea is full of oil, the beautiful Maroo Island is ruined now.”
Shidvar Island, only some 870 hectares (3.3 square miles) large, is designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. It had been known as one of the most important breeding grounds for terns, a seabird, in Iran. Iran has considered the island as a wildlife refuge since 1972.
Iranian officials have not acknowledged any environmental damage caused by the attack at the Lavan oil refinery, which came hours after the United States and Israel agreed to a ceasefire in the war with Iran. The U.S. also had asked Israel to halt its attacks on oil infrastructure after earlier striking facilities associated with Iran's offshore South Pars natural gas field. That attack sparked major Iranian assaults targeting oil and gas facilities across the Gulf Arab states, with Qatar being particularly hard hit.
Iranian media outlets have alleged the United Arab Emirates carried out the attack, something not acknowledged by Emirati officials. However, the UAE faced more missile and drone fire than any other country in the war and has sharpened its rhetoric against Iran as Tehran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
The Emirates' Barakah nuclear power plant also came under attack Sunday in a drone assault resembling others launched by Iran and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq during the war.
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Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
