MV Reyhan Sarı, a Turkish-flagged and unarmed dry cargo ship carrying coal from Russia's Taman Port to Trabzon on July 21, was attacked by Ukrainian drones off the coast of Novorossiysk. In the attack, 54-year-old sea worker Savaş Çakar, who worked in the engine room, lost his life and 2 crew members were injured.
Çakar's brother, Kocaeli Gündem Editor-in-Chief Abbas Çakar, wrote two separate columns after his brother's death, calling for those responsible for the attack to be held accountable. In his last article, Çakar announced that Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces Commander Robert Brovdi responded directly to him after his call to the authorities.
According to Çakar, Brovdi said in the e-mail he sent through the official account of the Ukrainian state, "Your brother consciously chose this path. His actions contributed to the enrichment of the Russian Federation and he got what he deserved."
Explaining what happened, Abbas Çakar said, "They are ships that carry out transportation entirely for commercial purposes. We learned that the ammunition generally used in attacks on ships is heavy ammunition, which is against the Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime. We experienced our pain during this process, and we buried our bodies."
Abbas Çakar, who stated that he wrote the article to vent his pain, said, "I came across the comment and e-mail sent to my article 2 days ago. When I checked it, I learned that it was an official e-mail account belonging to the military side of Ukraine. When I checked the name at the beginning, I learned that he was the commander of these unmanned aerial vehicles. He completely defended this action, which is considered a war crime, and this massacre; he sent a message saying 'He got what he deserved'. There was already anger inside me; after this e-mail. "My anger doubled," he said.
Çakar said, "A person who has been committing this kind of war crime for months, who thinks this is a game and not a war, has hired me and sent me an e-mail. Can you expect the high-ranking commander of a country to comment in this way from the official e-mail address of the state and say words like 'He got what he deserved, he got what he deserved' to the person who is in pain? Such a thing cannot be possible. This reveals how unqualified this person is. It is absolutely unacceptable. This situation fuels the anger inside me. I have pain, but I have anger that outweighs my pain." And this anger does not subside until the necessary legal process is initiated against these people and the necessary results are taken, many people say to me: 'You are rowing against the current.' I lost a life. From now on, I will follow this soul everywhere. My brother is gone, my liver is gone, I buried him unjustly. I couldn't see your face one last time. When he left, I couldn't see him for months. "He has two children, one of whom is a special individual," he said.
