Syria says nine nationals missing after drone sinks Black Sea ship

Nine Syrian sailors are missing following a drone strike that sank a commercial ship off the coast of Bulgaria, a Syrian official told AFP on Thursday, after rescuers called off search operations.

Bulgarian authorities said no survivors had been found from the ship, after drones hit two commercial vessels early Tuesday in the Black Sea, the latest fallout from the Ukraine-Russia war in recent months.

The strikes caused one ship to catch fire, while the other sank.

According to the Maritime.bg specialized website, 10 people were aboard the sunken Togolese-flagged Alfa Watan.

Mazen Alloush, an official at Syria's customs authority, told AFP that "the ship's crew was composed of 10 sailors, nine of them Syrians and one Egyptian", adding that "their fate is still unknown".

He said Syria had sent urgent messages to the International Maritime Organization and to Bulgarian maritime authorities "calling for an independent and transparent investigation" into the incident.

They also demanded "the reasons that led to the suspension of search and rescue operations", he added.

Eighteen Turkish and Indian crew members were rescued from the ship that caught fire.

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

The Syrian sailors' union said contact with the ship's crew had been lost and no survivors had been found after search operations were halted.

Some Syrians have been sharing images and death notices for their relatives on social media, including Walaa Melhem, who mourned her brother Tarek, described in his obituary as a "martyr of the sea".

Yasmine Merei instead shared images of her nephew Raed, 26, a cook aboard the sunken ship.

Rumen Nikolov, the head of Bulgaria's Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, said this week that the search had stopped late Tuesday and would not continue.

"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 added.