At least two seafarers killed after drone attack on Turkish vessel in the Black Sea

A ship’s captain and one other seafarer were killed, while other crew members were rescued, as a ship in the Black Sea caught fire and sank outside Romania's territorial waters yesterday, Reuters reported.

Ukraine blamed Russia for a drone attack on the general cargo ship Royad Mammadov, believed to be owned by Turkisk company MG Shipping 5 and sailing under the St Kitts & Nevis-flagged, en route for Ravenna carrying a cargo of corn loaded at the Ukrainian port of Izmail.

Romania's interior ministry said 11 crew members of the ship had been airlifted to safety, three of them injured, while one other seafarer is understood to be missing. The crew were Azerbaijani and Indian nationals.

The incident is the latest in a series of tit-for-tat strikes against ships and ports carried out by both Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea and Azov Sea region. Some 226 attacks on civilian and commercial vessels have taken place since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Turkish sources last month claimed, the vast majority of them occurring this year.