Fifteen Egyptian sailors whose vessels were caught in military operations in the Black Sea have been taken out of Ukraine to Moldova. They crossed the border on 12 October and are waiting for the first available flight to Egypt, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Nader Zaki said, as reported by Egypt Today.
Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty instructed officials to speed up the sailors’ return. Egypt’s embassies in Ukraine and Romania, the latter also accredited to Moldova, issued identity documents and Moldovan transit visas. The sailors’ employers covered their tickets home, according to Egyptian Streets.
The Egyptian side did not say which ports the vessels were in or name the ships.
Context
Shipping in the Black Sea remains dangerous. On 5–6 October alone, drone attacks sank two vessels off the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria and set a third on fire, Al Jazeera reported. Ten crew members of one of them, the Alfa Watan, are missing, nine of them Syrian nationals.
For Egypt, Black Sea security also has a food dimension: the country remains the largest buyer of Ukrainian wheat. Together with Ankara and New Delhi, Cairo has put forward options for restoring safe navigation.
