Drones Strike Two Ships Off Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast, Crew Missing
One vessel sank, a second was abandoned after a fire. Bulgarian officials called it the first reported drone attack on ships inside a NATO member's waters.
Two commercial ships were hit by drones in the Black Sea off Bulgaria on Tuesday morning. One sank. The other caught fire and its crew abandoned ship.
The office of President Iliana Iotova announced the attack, according to Reuters. The Bulgarian Council of Ministers later confirmed it, and Prime Minister Rumen Radev convened an emergency meeting with the defense, interior, and transport ministries, the president’s office, and the security services, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Bulgarian officials called it the first reported drone attack on vessels inside the country’s exclusive economic zone — the first of its kind in the waters of a NATO member state.
The ships were the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan and the Palau-flagged Able, according to the Bulgarian maritime outlet Maritime.bg. The strikes happened near the exit of the Sulina Canal, about 80 miles off the town of Byala in the Varna district, according to the vessel-tracking service Vesseltracker.
The Alfa Watan sank. Bulgarian public broadcaster BNR quoted the head of rescue operations in Varna, Rumen Nikolov, saying the crew aboard the sunken vessel remained missing and that search-and-rescue operations were continuing.
All 18 crew members aboard the Able got off the ship after the fire broke out. They were picked up by the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria, which diverted from its route between Constanta and Varna. Some of the rescued sailors were injured and received first aid on board before being transferred to Bulgarian border police vessels, Vesseltracker reported.
Who sent the drones is not known. No group or state has claimed responsibility.
A widening pattern
The attack came one day after a separate drone strike on a cargo ship near the Pescăruș gas platform off Romania’s Black Sea coast, according to Romanian maritime authorities. Crew members were also reported missing in that attack.
Drone strikes on commercial shipping have spread through the Black Sea since Russia invaded Ukraine, disrupting oil tankers and grain routes in one of the world’s busiest waterways.
Bulgarian authorities said more information would follow.
