War in Ukraine: attack on a ship in the Black Sea leaves one dead and three missing

One person was found dead and three others are missing after a ship made a distress call, Romanian authorities said on Friday October 23 in a context of an increase in incidents in the Black Sea linked to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“The rescue ships managed to recover nine living people and one body from the water,” the Romanian Naval Authority said in a statement, specifying that three crew members of the Khoryv, which was “in distress outside Romanian territorial waters”, were missing. The Authority did not specify the cause of the vessel's call for help.

The Khoryv is a cargo ship flying the flag of the Comoros, according to the specialist site VesselFinder.com. According to Romanian authorities, its crew was made up of ten Ukrainians and three Azerbaijanis. The ship issued a distress signal around 10:00 a.m. (07:00 GMT), while it was 13 nautical miles off the coast of the large Romanian port of Constanta.

“Due to adverse weather conditions and low visibility, an air rescue operation by helicopter is impossible,” the Naval Authority said. Drones have hit several merchant ships in the Black Sea, off the coast of Romania and Bulgaria, over the past three weeks, amid the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Last week, seven crew members went missing off the coast of Romania after a drone attacked the Wine Trader, a chemical tanker which caught fire, according to Romanian President Nicusor Dan, who called for an end to these “unacceptable” attacks. Romania has asked NATO to provide it with more equipment to deal with the situation. On Thursday, following a meeting of the Supreme National Defense Council, the Romanian presidency said that “threats to freedom of navigation and critical infrastructure have increased significantly” in recent times.

NATO member Romania, which borders Ukraine, is studying measures aimed at “accelerating the development of maritime surveillance capabilities, means of combating mines and effective devices to counter drones which enter without authorization into national airspace and territorial waters”. Over the weekend, Romanian F-16 fighter jets shot down two drones over the Black Sea. On Tuesday, NATO announced the deployment of additional planes, drones and radar systems in the Black Sea, following this series of attacks on ships.