Black Sea ship sinks off Romania, one dead and three missing; Dan blames Russia

Sinking off Constanta

Romanian authorities said on Friday, 23 October, that a search and rescue operation was underway in the Black Sea after a commercial ship caught fire and went down about 13 nautical miles east of the port city of Constanta. The Romanian Naval Authority gave the position, and the Ministry of Interior said border police had been alerted by the Maritime Coordination Center at around 10:00 local time about a fire aboard a commercial vessel. The ministry said the ship suffered damage, capsized and faced an imminent risk of sinking. Bloomberg and Romanian media name the vessel as the Khoryv, which sailed under the flag of the Comoros. The 13 people aboard were ten Ukrainian citizens and three Azerbaijanis.

Rescue and casualties

According to the interior ministry, ten of the 13 people were recovered by another commercial vessel in the area, nine alive and one dead. Three people remain missing. The nine survivors were transferred to a Coast Guard ship and brought to the port of Constanta on Friday, where ambulance and medical crews were waiting to assess their health. According to the Coast Guard, the response at the port included four SMURD ambulances, a mobile intensive care unit, two vehicles for transporting personnel and multiple casualties, and an advanced medical post. Europa Press, citing preliminary information, reported that at least ten people aboard were injured. Search efforts for the three missing crew members were continuing at the time of reporting.

Reaction from Bucharest and Brussels

Romanian President Nicusor Dan blamed Russia for the incident on Friday. He told reporters that it was part of the escalation Moscow is carrying out in the context of the war in Ukraine. Speaking to the broadcaster Digi24, he said a ship had been hit by a drone but did not explicitly say that a Russian drone struck it. Romanian reports said the vessel had been hit by drones, but the cause of the sinking and the responsibility for any attack have not been confirmed.

This is clearly part of the escalation that Russia is carrying out in the context of the war in Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was deeply alarmed by what she called the latest Russian escalation in the Black Sea. In a social media post she wrote that the attacks target innocent lives and clearly violate international law. She expressed sympathy for the family of the sailor who died and for the families of the three crew members still missing, and thanked the rescue teams searching for them.

Wider pattern of drone attacks

N-tv counted the Khoryv as the fourth commercial vessel damaged by drone strikes off the Romanian coast in October alone. About a week before this incident, two merchant ships were hit within days of each other near Sulina, at the Danube mouth. Earlier in October, a ship carrying Ukrainian grain was affected near Sfantu Gheorghe. Several ships in Bulgaria's Black Sea economic zone were also hit in the days before, and Romania and Bulgaria are both asking NATO for more support for Black Sea security. Drones have repeatedly been seen in Romanian airspace since the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, during attacks on Ukrainian Danube ports.