Nine sailors from Syria and one from Egypt are missing after a cargo ship was sunk in the Black Sea, with search-and-rescue operations called off.
The Turkish-owned Alfa Watan was hit by a drone off the Bulgarian coast on Tuesday. Russia is suspected of involvement in the latest of several such incidents during the war in Ukraine.
Bulgaria said there were “no traces” of the 10 crew members and called off the search on Wednesday. A second ship was damaged on the same day as the Alfa Watan, with all its crew rescued.
Syria on Thursday called for an investigation by Bulgaria and the International Maritime Organisation. Mazen Aloush, a director at the Syrian General Authority for Ports and Customs, said it should examine why the search for the Alfa Watan crew was called off before their fate was determined.
He said “all available technical means” should be used to reach the wreck and determine what happened. “The file should not be closed before exhausting all available possibilities,” Syrian state media quoted him as saying.
Vice Admiral Rumen Nikolov of Bulgaria's Maritime Administration Executive Agency had said a boat, three life rafts and parts of the ship's equipment were found before the Alfa Watan search was called off.
It was not certain who carried out the attack, which took place off the coastal town of Byala in eastern Bulgaria, but there are growing concerns about attacks by Russia on European Union and Nato countries.
“If we look at the nature of the cargo and the direction in which the ships were moving, then logically speaking the result argues in favour of Russia,” Prime Minister Rumen Radev said after a meeting of Bulgaria's National Security Council on Wednesday. “But that does not mean that we can claim that the strike was carried out by Russia without having evidence.”
The Russian embassy in Sofia denied involvement, saying the merchant ship was not among targets hit by Russian drones on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia and said his country's forces were not operating in that area.
Bulgarian President Iliana Iotova said the country would invite its Black Sea neighbours Turkey and Romania for talks on protecting shipping. It may also ask Nato allies to deploy “additional air and maritime surveillance capabilities and counter-drone systems”, she said.
Nato member Bulgaria does not border Russia or Ukraine but lies on the Black Sea, where both countries have major ports and shipping has been caught in the conflict. The drone attack follows an incident in which Romanian authorities said on Monday two people had died in a fire on a ship in the Black Sea.
It also comes in the wake of drone incidents in Poland and Romania, raising fears that Russia is testing Nato's defence posture without waging full-scale war against its members.
