San Francisco Frontiers - Black Sea drone attacks spell terror for Turkish sailors

"There was fire and smoke, the blast lifted us up and threw us left and right, it was very powerful," said Ahmet Ozlu, 40, one of five fishermen on board the Turkish-flagged Duru 67 that was hit by a drone off Crimea on June 5.

Such attacks on commercial vessels have multiplied in recent months as the Russia-Ukraine war has spilled into the Black Sea, with Turkish ships increasingly in the firing line.

A fire broke out and the boat began taking on water, so the fishermen rushed to the bridge where they found their captain and childhood friend Cuneyt Varlik, 45, lying in a pool of his own blood, his carotid artery severed by shrapnel.

Putting out a distress call, they waited bleeding and terrified as the boat sank lower until they were rescued an hour later.

"We thought we were going to die. And we were terrified of another strike," said Ozlu, who suffered extensive shrapnel injuries.

The attack was never claimed but the Turkish coastguard told them it was a Ukrainian drone which hit them "by mistake", he said.

"We never thought Ukraine would hit us because our flag was raised. We are civilians, our boat doesn't carry weapons," said his older brother Mehmet Ozlu, 53, who suffered extensive internal and external injuries.

Both deeply traumatised, neither brother has been back out to sea due to their injuries, Mehmet explained while helping mend nets in the northeastern port of Trabzon.

"I still ask myself why Ukraine hit people like us, Turkish civilians. As a state, they owe us an answer and compensation because this has ruined my and my children’s future," he said.

- 'Impossible to work' -

Despite its ties with both Russia and Ukraine, Turkey has been infuriated by the violence, accusing the warring sides of "attacking all commercial shipping without distinction".

"The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea are unacceptable, regardless of who is responsible for them," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Since the start of the war, 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been attacked in the Black Sea, the vast majority this year, Turkey's Chamber of Maritime Commerce (IMEAK) says.

"The fact that 163 -- more than 70 percent -- were targeted in the first eight months of 2026 clearly shows the gravity of the situation," IMEAK chairman Tamer Kiran said on August 27.

Of that number, 22 Turkish-owned vessels were attacked in the preceding two months, he said. Four more have been hit since then, industry sources say.

One was the MV Reyhan Sari that was attacked on July 22 after collecting a shipment of Russian coal, killing one and wounding three.

"It’s impossible to work in the Black Sea, especially now," said Enes Torun, 21, who is studying to become a captain and was sleeping when the first drone hit, shrapnel tearing into his body.

"It was a bad experience for me so early in my career," said Torun who is healing physically but struggling with PTSD and hasn't returned to the sea.

"Last year, I went to Ukraine when the war wasn’t this intense, but now being in the Black Sea means accepting the possibility of death."

Earlier this month, a Turkish defence source said "almost 90 ships" were hit in August, with a Turkish diplomat telling AFP last week Ankara had reached out with a fresh proposal.

Confirming the approach, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the sides had come back with "demands and positions that are difficult to reconcile".

The Turkish Maritime Workers' Platform has accused Russia and Ukraine of blatant disregard for civilian lives.

"Both states are disregarding the lives of seafarers solely to undermine each other’s economic interests," spokesman Ahmet Baran Can told AFP.

Torun said many sailors were refusing Black Sea jobs.

"If the ship gets hit, the shipowner gets insurance money, and if it doesn’t, he earns 10 times what he’d get in Europe. But we’re the ones on board who get hit."

- Deep unease -

Observers say Turkey has limited options as the Black Sea conflict enters "a very escalated phase".

"Russia and Ukraine are doing everything to deny the Black Sea to each other's vessels and ready to target non-belligerents so the other side cannot gain any advantage by using Turkish ships," said Serhat Guvenc, an international relations expert at Kadir Has University.

"The Ukrainians are not happy with Turkish reluctance to stop vessels from the so-called ghost fleet.. so they are probably trying to show them the cost of inaction."

Although Ankara has been reluctant to curtail Moscow's access to Turkish vessels, that could change if the attacks worsened, he predicted.

Despite the dangers, many Black Sea residents have little choice but to keep working, where fishing is a mainstay of the regional economy, explained Mustafa Yilmaz, local leader of the neighbourhood where the Duru 67 fishermen live.

But whenever they go out, they are anxious about being hit or inadvertently netting potentially dangerous war debris -- drones, bombs or grenades -- often carrying live payloads.

"You go out at night wondering if you'll hit something. It's really tough."

B.Ramirez--SFF