Romanian rescuers searched for seven missing sailors on October 15 after drone strikes set two chemical tankers ablaze near the country’s Black Sea coast. President Nicușor Dan confirmed the strikes, Reuters reported. The incidents occurred near Sulina, beside a shipping route linking the Black Sea with the Danube.
Five people were rescued from the San Marino-flagged Wine Trader, according to the Romanian Naval Authority, cited by the Associated Press. The tanker was travelling from Tunisia to Romania. Authorities placed the incident about 13 nautical miles southeast of Sulina; seven other people remained missing.
A second tanker caught fire the previous evening in the same region. Deutsche Welle reported that its crew was safe. The two incidents renewed concern over civilian shipping near Romania and Bulgaria, both members of NATO and the European Union, following other recent attacks in the Black Sea.
Romania’s defence ministry separately said radar detected aerial targets near Ukraine’s Snake Island overnight. At 1:34 a.m., a drone briefly entered national airspace southeast of Sulina before disappearing from radar. Spanish F-18 and Romanian F-16 aircraft took off during the night to monitor the situation.
The ministry said residents in northern and eastern Tulcea county received a warning at 4:57 a.m.; the air alert ended at 5:46 a.m. Its statement did not establish a link between that particular drone and either tanker. Reporting a radar incursion therefore does not by itself identify the aircraft responsible for the ship fires.
Speaking in Brussels, Dan said Romania would respond but wanted more information about the strikes, according to Reuters. He declined to identify the drones as Russian. The search for the missing sailors remained the immediate priority, while the authorities sought to clarify the circumstances of attacks close to an important Ukrainian shipping route.
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