Turkish-flagged fishing boat is attacked in the Black Sea, leaving a sailor dead

ISTANBUL — A Turkish-flagged fishing boat was attacked and sank off the northern Black Sea coast, leaving one sailor dead and four others wounded, the Turkish Coast Guard said late Friday.

The Duru 67 was attacked west of Sevastopol in Crimea earlier Friday, according to a Coast Guard Command statement. The peninsula was illegally seized from Ukraine by Russia and annexed in March 2014. The statement did not provide further details of the attack.

Five injured sailors were rescued by another trawler, the Burak Kaya, but one died on the way back to Turkey.

A Coast Guard vessel carrying a medical team reached the Burak Kaya 115 nautical miles (213 kilometers, 132 miles) north of Turkey’s Inebolu port and the casualties were placed on board.

After a 15-hour return voyage, the injured were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital Kastamonu, state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Provincial Health Director Fevzi Yavuzyılmaz said they were suffering shrapnel wounds and one had undergone minor surgery aboard the Coast Guard ship.

“Two of our patients have relatively minor injuries and two have slightly more serious injuries,” he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The waters off Ukraine have seen regular attacks on shipping since Russia launched a war on Ukraine in February 2022.

In November, the Turkish government condemned Ukrainian drone attacks on two oil tankers in the Black Sea as posing “serious risks to navigation, life, property and environmental safety in the region.”