The bodies of two Ukrainian sailors, who fell victims to a cargo ship in the Black Sea heading from Azov (Russian Federation) to Samsun (Turkey), have already been identified; their relatives have already been informed, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Andrii Sybiha has reported.
“According to the identification results, two bodies have been identified, which were lifted by rescuers yesterday. Relatives of the dead citizens of Ukraine were informed. The rescue operation continues,” Sybiha wrote on Twitter on Jan. 9.
As earlier reported, the coastal freighter Volgo-Balt 214 of the river-sea class sank in a storm some 80 kilometers off the Turkish coast on January 7 morning. According to information from the Daily Sabah, the freighter was flying the flag of Panama and carried a batch of coal from a Russian port in the Sea of Azov to the port of Samsun in Turkey.
According to the information from Turkish media, six people were killed when the freighter sank and seven members of the crew were rescued by the Turkish coastal guard.
The press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons said on January 7 night that the sunken coastal freighter ship Volgo-Balt 214 belonged to the river-sea class.
“The cargo ship Volgo-Balt 214 flying the flag of Panama, which today crashed and sank off the coast of Turkey, was transporting coal from a port of Azov (Russian Federation) to the port of Samsun (Turkey). This Russian port in Rostov region is often used to smuggle coal from parts of the occupied Donbas to the ports of Turkey and other countries. According to monitoring systems for Volgo-Balt ships of the river-sea type, accidents under such weather conditions are predictable,” the ministry said in a post on its Facebook page.
The ministry added that from the summer of 2017 the ship walked under the Russian flag, changing it for two months for the flag of the State of Saint Kitts and Nevis, and later from August 2017—for the flag of Panama.
On January 8, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Andrii Sybiha said that the bodies of two more Ukrainian sailors killed when a coastal freighter en route from the port of Azov in Russia to the port of Samsun in Turkey sunk near Samsun on January 7 were recovered from water.
