Bulgaria ends search for missing crew after drone strike sinks cargo ship

Rescuers halt operation off the coast with no survivors found, following a Black Sea attack that also damaged a second vessel.

Crew members from a ship damaged in a drone attack disembark from a Bulgarian border police vessel in Varna, October 6, 2026 [Petko Momchilov/Reuters]

Bulgarian authorities have ended search operations after confirming no survivors were found following a drone strike that sank a ship off the country’s coast.

Drones hit two commercial vessels early on Tuesday as attacks on Black Sea shipping increase amid an intensifying Russia-Ukraine war . One caught fire, and the other sank.

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“There is no trace of the sailors,” Rumen Nikolov, the head of the country’s Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, told reporters on Wednesday.

The search stopped late on Tuesday and would not continue, he added.

Eighteen Turkish and Indian crew members were rescued from the ship that caught fire, but the crew members from the vessel that sank remain missing.

Authorities have not said how many people are missing, but according to the Maritime.bg specialised website, 10 people were on board the ship.

Nikolov said the ⁠incident occurred in a so-called “responsible search and rescue zone” and not in the country’s territorial waters, which extend to 12 nautical miles off the coast.

“What was found from the sunken ship was one overturned boat, three life rafts and debris from the ship’s equipment that was floating on the surface of the sea,” he said.

Asked whether any debris from the drones had been recovered, Nikolov said: “I have no information about drone debris.”

Prime Minister Rumen Radev has described the attack as “absolutely unacceptable”.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen has also condemned the incident.

Bulgarian authorities have said they are not yet able to determine the origin of the drones.

A distress beacon signal from the ship that sank was received at 2:54am on Tuesday (23:54 GMT on Monday), while the distress signal from the other ship was received at 3:23am (00:23 GMT), Nikolov said.

Both commercial ships were managed by Turkiye-based companies, according to the Equasis merchant shipping database.

They were hit about 80 nautical miles (150km) east of the Bulgarian coastal town of Byala.

The strikes came a day after another ship caught fire and sank off the Romanian coast on Monday, killing two people. Ukraine blamed Russia for the drone attack.

黑海发生袭击事件，另一艘船只受损，救援人员在近海停止救援行动，未发现幸存者。

2026年10月6日，在瓦尔纳，一艘在无人机袭击中受损的船只上的船员从保加利亚边防警察船上下来。[Petko Momchilov/路透社]

保加利亚当局在确认无人机袭击导致该国海岸附近一艘船只沉没后没有找到幸存者后，已结束搜救行动。

周二清晨，无人机袭击了两艘商船，随着俄乌战争升级，针对黑海航运的袭击事件也随之增加。其中一艘起火，另一艘沉没。

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“没有找到这些水手的任何踪迹，”该国海上搜救协调中心负责人鲁门·尼科洛夫周三告诉记者。

他补充说，搜寻工作已于周二晚些时候停止，不会继续进行。

18名土耳其和印度船员从起火的船只上获救，但沉没船只上的船员仍然下落不明。

当局尚未透露有多少人失踪，但据 Maritime.bg 专业网站报道，船上共有 10 人。

尼科洛夫表示，这起事件发生在所谓的“责任搜救区”，而不是该国的领海内，领海向外延伸至离岸12海里处。

他说：“从沉船上发现的有一艘翻覆的小艇、三个救生筏以及漂浮在海面上的船上设备碎片。”

当被问及是否已回收无人机残骸时，尼科洛夫说：“我没有关于无人机残骸的信息。”

总理鲁门·拉德夫称此次袭击“绝对不可接受”。

欧盟委员会主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩也谴责了这起事件。

保加利亚当局表示，他们目前尚无法确定这些无人机的来源。

尼科洛夫说，周二凌晨 2 点 54 分（格林尼治标准时间周一 23:54）收到了沉船发出的遇险信标信号，而另一艘船的遇险信号则在凌晨 3 点 23 分（格林尼治标准时间 00:23）收到。

根据 Equasis 商船数据库显示，这两艘商船均由土耳其公司管理。

他们被击中的地点位于保加利亚沿海城镇比亚拉以东约 80 海里（150 公里）处。

此次袭击发生在另一艘船只周一在罗马尼亚海岸附近起火沉没、造成两人死亡的第二天。乌克兰指责俄罗斯发动了无人机袭击。