Croatian seaman still missing a week after drone strike on tanker

A Croatian deck officer remains missing a week after a drone attack hit the tanker Wine Trader in the Black Sea, Romania's seafarers' union said on Thursday.

Adrian Mihălcioiu, head of Romania's Free Seafarers' Union and an inspector with the International Transport Workers' Federation, told Večernji list the officer had still not been found since the attack on 15 October. A second Croatian crew member suffered minor burns, was treated in hospital and has since been discharged to a hotel, Mihălcioiu said.

The Wine Trader, sailing under the flag of San Marino, was anchored and empty at the time of the attack, waiting to sail on to Moldova to load vegetable oil. Romania's maritime authority said the vessel reported a fire at around seven in the morning, roughly 13 nautical miles south-east of the Romanian port of Sulina. Mihălcioiu said the strike itself happened earlier, shortly before dawn, while most of the crew were still asleep.

Twelve people were on board: two Croatians, one citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina and nine from Benin. Romania's maritime authority said 5 crew members were rescued, while 7 were reported missing in the hours after the attack. A ship and a helicopter took part in the search, the authority said.

The drone struck the lower part of the crew accommodation area, where the missing Croatian officer and six Beninese crew members had been sleeping, Mihălcioiu said. Those who survived had either been in higher parts of the vessel or were on watch at the time.

Mihălcioiu said he believes Russian drones carried out the attack. He pointed to footage released by Russia's defence ministry, saying it matched satellite images of the Wine Trader, though the ministry did not name the vessel in its own statement. Croatia's foreign ministry is in contact with Romanian authorities, Slobodna Dalmacija reported.