The tragedy of Syrian sailors .Dead and wounded in targeting a Syrian merchant ship  in the Black Sea

The Togo-flagged commercial cargo ship Aida (AIDA), owned by a Syrian shipping company and flying the flag of the State of Togo, with Syrian and Egyptian sailors on board, was subjected to a violent drone attack while docking in the Ukrainian port of Pivdenny (also known as the port of Yuzhny), killing five sailors and injuring ten others of varying severity.

Union and local sources in Ukraine's Odesa province  reported on Tuesday that the earlier attack  caused massive fires and plumes of thick smoke rising from the hull.

Videos circulated by activists on social media documented the first moments of the shelling, where a crew member was heard shouting in panic in Arabic: "We were hit... We are in Ukraine and we have been bombed," he said, confirming that there was an entire Arab crew living difficult moments at the site of the flaming strikes.

According to the sources following up on the file, 5 sailors, including the ship's captain, were killed and about 10 people were injured and were transferred to nearby Ukrainian hospitals, where a number of them are lying under intensive care in intensive care units.

The Syrian Seafarers' Syndicate mourns the sailors

The Syrian Seafarers' Syndicate officially mourned three of the  Syrian leadership cadres on board the  ship, including its captain

The syndicate issued an explanatory statement in which it affirmed its absolute and constitutional solidarity with the rights of seafarers and the families of the victims, stating that foreign-flagged vessels (such as Togo in the case of the returning vessel) are legally subject to the sovereignty and constitution of the "flag state" in accordance with the Maritime Action Convention (MLC 2006) and the SOLAS Convention, which means that the union does not have the powers to issue movement orders or modify the ships' routes.

However, the syndicate stressed the right of any Syrian seafarer to refuse to sail and work in areas of conflict and war, and to protect him from any arbitrary action that may be taken against him by the companies that own him.

Syrian shipping companies, led by the "Matarji Shipping Company", following in the footsteps of the Beit Al-Yamaq Company, announced the complete suspension of the departure and sailing of all their commercial ships to Russian and Ukrainian ports, until real international mechanisms are put in place to ensure that commercial crews are not subjected to bombing.

Syrian ship sinks in Iranian port

On a related note, the Ports and Maritime Authority in Iran's Hormozgan province announced that the Syrian merchant ship "LUNI" suffered a sudden fracture in its hull that led to its partial sinking while it was in the al-Mughtaf area of the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas for reasons that are still under investigation.

This coincided with the collision of two cargo tankers at dawn today in the south of Qeshm Island, where the Iranian maritime rescue teams succeeded in evacuating the entire crew of the Syrian ship, the 23 sailors, and transported them safely to safety without recording any human casualties.