By Simon Ormiston and Anna Kirchheim
Published on •Updated
Massive searches are underway in the Black Sea for the crew of a cargo ship that sank on Tuesday after drones struck two commercial ships off the coast of Bulgaria, a day after another drone attack sank a Turkish grain ship off the Romanian coast, killing two crew members.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Maritime and aerial drones struck the ships around 3 a.m. local time (2 a.m. CET), about 70 nautical miles east of the town of Byala in the Bulgarian exclusive economic zone, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said.
The crew of the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria, which was in the area, saw an explosion on the first ship and rushed to the scene, Radev confirmed. They found an overturned lifeboat and life jackets, but no crew members.
Authorities did not specify how many people were on board or the origin of the drones.
A second ship was attacked and caught fire, and its 18 crew members were rescued by the Dioscuria. Eleven are Turkish and seven Indian, according to Radev’s televised speech.
Two of them were hospitalized, one suffering from burns and the other from head trauma. The remaining 16 were disembarked aboard a Border Police patrol boat.
Radev said two helicopters were sent to Varna to pick up rescue teams and a Su-25 aircraft was deployed to carry out aerial reconnaissance over the area. The operation is led by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center.
Both ships sent distress signals overnight and one of them disappeared from border police radars around 9 a.m. local time (8 a.m. CET), public broadcaster BNR reported.
Bulgarian maritime news site Maritime.bg named the sunken ship as the Alfa Watan and the second as the Palau-flagged Able. He said the strikes were the first attack on shipping in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone.
Both ships are Turkish-owned, according to the Equasis merchant shipping database.
Ship tracking website shipfinder.com shows the Alfa Watan was sailing under the Togolese flag and heading to the Romanian port of Sulina.
The second ship was carrying wheat and sailing south, Radev said. The cargo of the sunken Alfa Watan is not yet known.
Radev, who called the attack “absolutely unacceptable”, did not specify who launched the drones, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the development “worrying”.
Three attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea in two days
Tuesday’s attack came a day after a Turkish cargo ship carrying grain from Ukraine to Italy off the Romanian coast in the Black Sea was attacked by at least one drone and sank after catching fire, killing two crew members.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said the ship’s captain, Azerbaijani national Rustam Ismayil oglu Hasanov, had died and his body was being repatriated. A second Azerbaijani crew member, Mahammad Hamza oglu Suleymanzade, is still missing and the search and rescue operation continues. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said their families were being informed and receiving logistical and financial support.
11 other crew members were rescued by Romanian authorities. Three Azerbaijani sailors and an Indian crew member receive emergency medical treatment in Romania.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has explicitly reiterated its urgent warning to Azerbaijani citizens to refrain from traveling to active conflict zones, working in high-risk areas, or accepting employment on transport ships operating along contested maritime corridors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russia for yesterday’s cargo ship sinking and called it a “horrible strike by two Russian drones on a civilian ship” in neutral waters.
India condemned Tuesday’s attack because some of the crew members were Indian nationals. India’s foreign ministry issued a statement saying that “India views these attacks on commercial vessels and seafarers with great concern,” adding that “the targeting of traffic on international waterways seriously harms global trade and the well-being of people across the world.”
Additional sources • Euronews office in Baku
Gn world
