The crews of the two vessels have left their respective tankers and are reported to be safe. The vessels are around 30 nautical miles north of the Turkish coast and there is a risk that they will sink.
There is no confirmed information about how the ships started burning, other than the Turkish authorities stating “external forces”.
One of the ships was empty and was en route from Egypt to Novorossiysk, Russia. The second ship, which started burning about an hour after the first, most recently docked in Turkey and was reportedly also en route to Russia.
Both tankers are suspected of being part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet - aging oil tankers that Russia uses to circumvent Western sanctions. The EU has imposed sanctions on a total of 557 ships suspected of belonging to the so-called shadow fleet, including banning them from calling at EU ports. According to the Reuters news agency, both tankers in question are among these.
