Two dead after ship fire and sinking in Black Sea

Two people died and 11 crew members were rescued after a fire aboard the commercial ship Royad Mammadov in the Black Sea, Romanian authorities said Monday. The vessel later sank. Authorities said they had not determined what caused the fire, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russian drones. Romania’s Interior Ministry said the Coast Guard was alerted at about 11 a.m. local time to a fire aboard a commercial vessel within the country’s exclusive economic zone, roughly 30 nautical miles south of Sfântu Gheorghe. The ministry reported that two people had died and 11 crew members had been rescued. The Romanian Naval Authority identified the ship as the Royad Mammadov. Zelenskyy said in a post on X that two Russian drones struck the civilian vessel. He described it as carrying corn and said Azerbaijani and Indian citizens were among those aboard. He said the captain was killed and the fate of one other person was still being established. Romanian authorities did not confirm the drone allegation or identify a cause for the fire, and Russia had not commented in the reports. The casualty and rescue figures came from Romanian authorities.