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Türkiye's maritime community demanded a murder investigation, international prosecutions and deterrent action after a Turkish sailor was killed in a drone attack on the cargo ship MV Reyhan Sari as the vessel reached Trabzon with the crewman's body still aboard and a third drone-damaged ship anchored off the Turkish coast.
The Turkish Maritime Federation (TDF), in a joint declaration with its member associations, branded the systematic targeting of merchant ships and crew quarters "a crime against humanity" whose perpetrators must face international criminal law, declaring that "seafarers are not a party to the war."
"The war continuing in the Black Sea now directly targets not only the warring parties but civilian seafarers working aboard international merchant ships.
The loss of life and wounding of Turkish seafarers in recent targeted drone attacks on merchant vessels is the most painful example of this," the federation said, condemning "all attacks on innocent, laboring seafarers regardless of nationality."
The statement said the systematic, direct targeting of ships, including Turkish-flagged vessels, and of crew cabins "is of the nature of a crime against humanity, and we believe its perpetrators must be punished under international criminal law." It invoked the Geneva Conventions' Additional Protocol I, quoting Article 51's protection of civilians from attack and noting merchant ships are protected under Article 52.
The federation called on prosecutors to open an intentional-killing investigation into the death of the Turkish sailor and urged flag states of attacked vessels, noting Russia and Ukraine are parties to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, to seek provisional measures and compensation before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
Among its demands:
"Seafarers are not a party to the war. They are the invisible heroes of global trade, delivering energy, food, raw materials and basic necessities to every port in the world," the statement said, noting some 90% of world trade moves by sea.
"The seas must remain a shared space of life where peace, safe navigation, international cooperation and human dignity are protected, not an arena into which war is carried," the statement noted.
The Reyhan Sari, struck by two successive drones off Novorossiysk while carrying coal from Russia's Taman Port, reached Trabzon Port on Saturday morning under its own power.
The vessel took heavy hits to its funnel and crew accommodation quarters.
Specialist teams first swept the damaged sections for explosives before recovering the body of Savas Cakar, the 54-year-old engine room crewman killed in the attack, from beneath piles of iron wreckage, with AFAD and Trabzon fire crews assisting. His body was taken to the Forensic Medicine Institute for autopsy.
Footage from inside the ship showed extensive damage.
The two wounded crew members remain under treatment in Samsun hospitals.
The ship is expected to depart after discharging its coal cargo, said Ugur Sahinturk, owner of agent Poyraz Denizcilik, who spoke to Ihlas News Agency (IHA) and met the vessel at the port.
The Reyhan Sari is not alone.
The Panama-flagged LPG tanker Gas Nero, which caught fire on deck after a drone strike in the Black Sea, was directed to Trabzon under Samsun Port Authority coordination and anchored in a safe zone off Surmene for repairs.
A third drone-damaged LPG tanker also arrived, anchoring off Akcaabat's Sogutlu district with visible damage to its bow and bridge.
The attacks cap a pattern stretching back to the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion.
In February 2022, the Turkish bulk carrier Yasa Jupiter was struck by a Russian missile at the Port of Odesa, the first commercial vessel damaged in the war.
The Turkish vessels Tuzla and Ferahnaz were damaged in Russian shelling of Kherson in January 2023, and the cargo ship Kafkametler was damaged by a drifting sea mine near the Romanian coast in October 2023.
The tempo accelerated from late 2025.
The Turkish-flagged LPG tanker MT Orinda was damaged in a Russian attack on Izmail's port infrastructure in November. In December, the Turkish vessel VIVA, carrying Ukrainian sunflower oil to Egypt, was struck by a Russian drone, and the Turkish ferry CENK T, operating between Türkiye, Ukraine and Romania, was damaged in a Russian missile attack on Odesa.
In 2026, the Turkish-operated, Vanuatu-flagged bulk carrier ANT was attacked by a Russian drone after departing Odesa on May 28, wounding two Turkish crew members. A Turkish-owned, Panama-flagged dry cargo vessel was attacked by a Russian drone off Chornomorsk on June 22, also wounding two Turkish crew members, and on July 20, the Turkish-owned, Guinea-Bissau-flagged bulk carrier Golden Leo was struck by three Russian cruise missiles shortly after leaving Odesa, killing multiple crew members and a Ukrainian pilot.
The clustering of damaged ships off Türkiye's Black Sea coast underscores how the spiraling drone war on commercial shipping, which has also seen the Ukraine-bound tanker Gas Lisbon hit off Romania and Filipino and Indian seafarers killed has moved from the war zone to Türkiye's doorstep, days after Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned in Kyiv that "the targeting of ports, tankers and fishing boats in Black Sea and putting civilians' lives at risk cannot be justified."
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