The crew of the sunken ship is still missing. The 18 people on board the other ship have been rescued, rescue services told Bulgarian radio station BNR.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev called the incident “a flagrant violation of maritime law.”
“Such an attack within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone is completely unacceptable,” he told reporters after an emergency meeting with the government that had been called at short notice.
It is the first attack on shipping in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. A search operation is now underway about 150 kilometres east of the Bulgarian coastal town of Byala. A boat that arrived at the scene shortly after the attack found life rafts and life jackets turned upside down, Radev said.
The sunken ship is said to have sailed under the Togolese flag and the other ship - which was set on fire during the attack - under the Palauan flag, according to the website maritime.bg.
According to Oleh Kiper, governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, another ship has been shelled in the Black Sea. In a Telegram post, he said one person was killed and seven injured in the drone attack on the ship, which was allegedly transporting rapeseed oil, and blamed Russia.
“By deliberately attacking civilian shipping and port infrastructure, Russia is grossly violating international law and creating a threat to global food security,” he wrote.
On Monday, two people died in a ship fire in the Black Sea outside Romania’s exclusive economic zone. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Russian drones attacked the ship, which was reportedly loaded with grain.
