{"id":2723,"date":"2026-10-15T14:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2723"},"modified":"2026-10-15T14:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:03:44","slug":"two-ships-ablaze-in-romanian-black-sea-waters-8-sailors-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2723","title":{"rendered":"Two ships ablaze in Romanian Black Sea waters, 8 sailors missing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Rescuers were searching for eight missing crew members on Thursday from one of two chemical tankers that caught fire overnight inside Romanian territorial waters \u200bin the Black Sea, after Russian drones strayed into Romanian airspace, Romanian \u200cofficials said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Romanian officials stopped short of explicitly linking the fires onboard the ships to the Russian drones.<\/p>\n

But the incidents follow drone strikes on at least five other cargo ships near the \u200bcoasts of Romania and neighbouring fellow NATO member Bulgaria over the past 10 \u200bdays.<\/p>\n

At least 23 sailors were lost from those strikes, which \u2060, unlike the latest incidents, took place just outside NATO\u2019s territorial waters.<\/p>\n

The two ships hit \u200bovernight were both anchored in the Black Sea near the mouth of the canal \u200bleading out of the Danube River, a major shipping route used by Ukraine as Russia has attacked Ukraine\u2019s own Black Sea ports.<\/p>\n

Romania\u2019s naval authority said it received an emergency alert from the San \u200bMarino-flagged tanker Wine Trader. Eight of its 12 crew were missing, and four \u200bwere safe.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Comoros-flagged chemical and oil tanker Yara J also caught fire. Romanian authorities initially said it \u200cwas \u2060not clear whether it had been attacked. All its crew were safe.<\/p>\n

Romania shares a 614-km border with Ukraine, much of it along the Danube. It has reported repeated breaches of its airspace by Russian drones over the past four years.<\/p>\n

Both Wine Trader and \u200bYara J caught fire \u200bnear the mouth \u2060of the Danube River\u2019s Sulina Canal leading to the Black Sea, where ships often anchor waiting to pass because of delays from \u200bweather and congestion.<\/p>\n

Increasing attacks on Black Sea shipping connected with \u200bthe Russia-Ukraine \u2060war in recent months have threatened to cause a global food crisis, as both countries are major exporters of grain.<\/p>\n

Russia has been bombing Ukraine\u2019s Black Sea ports, forcing Kyiv to \u2060rely \u200bincreasingly on Danube River ports and shipping routes close \u200bto the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania. For its part, Ukraine has targeted Russian ships near the \u200bmouth of the Don River in the Azov Sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rescuers were searching for eight missing crew members on Thursday from one of two chemical tankers that caught fire overnight inside Romanian territorial waters \u200bin the Black Sea, after Russian drones strayed into Romanian airspace, Romanian \u200cofficials said. Romanian officials stopped short of explicitly linking the fires onboard the ships to the Russian drones. But the incidents follow drone strikes on at least five other cargo ships near the \u200bcoasts of Romania and neighbouring fellow NATO member Bulgaria over the past 10 \u200bdays. At least 23 sailors were lost from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}