Bulgarian maritime authorities have terminated search and rescue operations after confirming that no survivors were located following a drone strike that sank a commercial vessel off the nation`s Black Sea coast. The attack unfolded early Tuesday when unmanned aerial vehicles targeted two merchant ships navigating international waters. One vessel caught fire while the second sustained catastrophic structural damage and sank.
No trace of the missing mariners was found.
Rumen Nikolov, director of Bulgaria`s Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, stated Wednesday that active sweeps were officially halted late Tuesday without plans to resume. Border police craft successfully evacuated 18 Turkish and Indian personnel from the burning vessel, bringing them ashore at the port of Varna. However, the complement operating aboard the sunken hull remains unaccounted for across the operational zone.
Ten individuals were reportedly aboard the sunken carrier.
While regional maritime administrators declined to specify an official casualty count, specialized shipping registry Maritime.bg reported that ten crew members were aboard when the strike occurred. The incident marks a sharp escalation in operational risks facing commercial logistics across the Black Sea as regional warfare spreads into international trade corridors.
Naval monitoring agencies continue to warn commercial operators against entering unmonitored sectors of the basin.
