Dubai — Video and satellite images show an oil spill from a wartime strike on an Iranian refinery smearing waters around a nearby protected island and killing marine life, raising fresh alarm about environmental damage from the conflict.
Mobile phone footage posted in recent days by an Iranian identified as Ehsan Jalali captures a fire and thick black smoke after an April 9 strike on a refinery on Lavan Island, a facility off Iran’s southern coast. Other clips show oil-coated birds and crabs and a dead swordfish, while Jalali laments the sight of dolphins surfacing amid polluted water.
High-resolution photographs taken April 10 by an Airbus DS Pleiades Neo satellite and analyzed by The Associated Press show flames still burning at the Lavan refinery two days after the attack and a dark oil slick spreading through the Persian Gulf and wrapping around Shidvar Island (also locally called Maroo Island).
Shidvar is uninhabited and covers about 3.3 square miles. It is protected under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and long has been considered one of Iran’s most important breeding grounds for terns. The satellite images and video indicate the spill has reached this sensitive wildlife refuge.
Iranian authorities have not publicly acknowledged environmental harm from the Lavan strike. The footage was posted amid a period of restricted internet access inside Iran.
The incident adds to a pattern of ecological damage tied to the wider war. Authorities and reports have said oily rain fell in Tehran after strikes on oil facilities, and attacks linked to the conflict have damaged ships transiting the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman.
The Lavan strike occurred hours after the United States and Israel had reportedly agreed to a ceasefire. U.S. officials have urged Israel to avoid further strikes on oil infrastructure following an earlier attack on facilities tied to Iran’s offshore South Pars gas field, which prompted wider Iranian assaults on Gulf oil and gas targets. Those retaliatory strikes have affected multiple Gulf Arab states, with Qatar singled out as especially hard hit.
Iranian media have accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out the Lavan attack; Emirati officials have not confirmed that. The UAE has endured more missile and drone attacks than other countries in the war and has tightened its rhetoric toward Iran. The Emirates’ Barakah nuclear power plant was also struck in a drone attack similar to others attributed to Iranian forces and allied militias.
Independent verification of all responsibility claims remains limited. Satellite imagery and local video, however, provide clear evidence that the refinery fire produced an extensive oil slick and inflicted visible harm on wildlife in a Ramsar-listed wetland.
