Rescuers are searching for seven missing sailors after a chemical tanker caught fire overnight inside Romanian territorial waters in the Black Sea.
The San Marino-flagged Wine Trader was anchored near the mouth of the Sulina Canal leading into the Danube River when it sent an emergency alert to Romanian authorities early Thursday, Romania’s naval authority said. Seven of its 12 crew members were missing, while five were rescued. The interior ministry dispatched two Black Hawk helicopters and two ships carrying medical staff to the scene.
“At the moment, the rescue cannot be done safely because of very big waves,” the ministry said in a statement.
A second vessel, the Comoros-flagged chemical and oil tanker Yara J, also caught fire late Wednesday in the same area near the Danube’s mouth, where ships routinely anchor while waiting to pass due to weather delays and congestion. All crew members aboard the Yara J were reported safe. Romanian authorities initially said it was unclear whether that vessel had been attacked.
The fires came after Russian drones strayed into Romanian airspace overnight, Romanian officials said. They stopped short of explicitly linking the drone incursions to the ship fires. The incidents follow drone strikes on at least five other cargo ships near the coasts of Romania and neighboring Bulgaria over the past 10 days, attacks that took place just outside NATO territorial waters and left at least 23 sailors lost.
Romania shares a 381-mile border with Ukraine, much of it along the Danube, and has reported repeated breaches of its airspace by Russian drones over the past four years. The Sulina Canal area where both ships caught fire serves as a major shipping route for Ukraine, which has increasingly relied on Danube River ports as Russia has targeted Ukraine’s own Black Sea ports.
The surge in attacks on civilian shipping connected to the Russia-Ukraine war has raised alarms about global food security, given that both countries plus Romania are major grain exporters.
“We’re looking at the Black Sea as a global food artery,” Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Toiu told a security conference in Warsaw earlier this week. “It is currently, unfortunately, the deadliest sea when it comes to the number of casualties of sailors in the last months. That means we need to increase our investments in deterrence, defence.”
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said EU leaders would discuss on Thursday a proposed moratorium on attacks on civilian ships in the Black Sea. Russia has been bombing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, forcing Kyiv to rely increasingly on Danube River routes close to Bulgarian and Romanian coasts. Ukraine, for its part, has targeted Russian ships near the mouth of the Don River in the Azov Sea.
The overnight drone incursions and ship fires mark an escalation of dangers inside NATO territorial waters, contrasting with the previous wave of attacks that stayed just outside the alliance’s maritime boundaries.