By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:Eswatini Government is allegedly assisting Russia to register ships amid United States(US) sanctions.

News24, a South African online publication reported on Monday that, dozens of Russian tankers remain stuck doing nothing months after being sanctioned by the Treasury Department,a signal of the US’s scope to disrupt Moscow’s petroleum supply chain if it chooses to.

The report further suggests that, since October, forty(40) ships involved in Russia’s oil trade have been added to the Treasury’s list of designated entities, mostly for breaching a price cap that’s meant to restrict the Kremlin’s access to petrodollars.

But amid the US sanctions, the landlocked tiny Kingdom of eSwatini is now registering ships with an alleged intention to assist Russia and other sanctioned countries.

“The data show five of the Hennesea tankers are also operating with new identities, all of them now sailing under the flag of Eswatini. The tiny land-locked country in southern Africa, formerly known as Swaziland, is among the latest to offer ship registry services.This comes after the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) issued a warning in April regarding flags it identified as fraudulent. It raised specific concerns over flags purportedly administered on behalf of Guyana and Eswatini respectively,” News24 reported.