Black Sea drone attack sinks cargo ship; eleven missing

A cargo ship was sunk by a drone attack in the Black Sea on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, leaving eleven sailors reported missing at sea, MarineLink Maritime News said. The incident occurred off the coast of Bulgaria and was one of two strikes on merchant vessels overnight, the report added.

Two cargo ships were struck by drones during the same attack window, and one of those vessels sank, according to MarineLink Maritime News. The outlet said the strikes took place overnight and that the sinking left eleven crew members unaccounted for.

The report described the sinking as possibly the second deadly loss of a cargo vessel in the area within a week, signalling a worrying pattern of attacks on merchant shipping in the Black Sea. Those details were given in the MarineLink report dated 13 October 2026.

Official response

Bulgaria summoned Russia's ambassador in response to the incident, the MarineLink account said. That diplomatic step followed the overnight strikes and the sinking of a cargo vessel off the Bulgarian coast.

Incident summary and scale

MarineLink stated that two cargo ships were hit and that one vessel sank, with eleven sailors missing at sea as of the report on 13 October 2026. The outlet characterised the sinking as possibly the second fatal loss of a cargo vessel in the same sea area within a week.

The published report supplied the core facts, the strikes, the sinking, the number of missing seafarers and Bulgaria's summons of the Russian ambassador, without further detail on vessel identities, crew nationalities or subsequent search operations. Those specific elements were not set out in the MarineLink Maritime News item dated 13 October 2026.

The incident and the diplomatic reaction together underline the seriousness of the events described in the MarineLink report, which recorded both the immediate human toll in missing seafarers and the prompt governmental response. The account places the attacks in the Black Sea and records that they occurred off the coast of Bulgaria overnight on Tuesday, 13 October 2026.