Croatian sailors demand a war zone in the Black Sea: the war is already sinking ships off the EU's coast

The chemical tanker Vine Trader, flying the flag of San Marino, was hit by drones on October 15, about 13 nautical miles south-east of the Romanian town of Sulina, near the border with Ukraine. There were 12 crew members on board: two Croatians, one citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina and nine from Benin. Five were rescued. Seven went missing - one Croatian and six from Benin.

The search has been called off. Neven Melvan, general secretary of the Seafarers' Union of Croatia, said there is almost no hope of finding the missing. The rescue operation began immediately after the attack but was hampered by very bad weather at sea. The second Croatian suffered superficial burns, was kept in hospital, then discharged and put up in a hotel, Croatia's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs confirmed.

"People are dying in the European Union too"

Through the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF), the union is now demanding that the part of the Black Sea off Romania and Bulgaria be officially declared a war zone. "People are dying in the European Union too," Melvan warned. The logic is simple and brutal: with war-zone status, sailors gain the right to refuse to sail through those waters, with all the protections they're entitled to when working in a war.

That's where the problem starts. Melvan himself admits it remains to be seen whether there will be enough political will, because these are waters off EU member states. In other words - someone has to say out loud that the war has reached the Union's shore. How many governments will want to put their name to that sentence?

Seven ships in two weeks

The Vine Trader isn't an isolated case. On October 13 alone, two merchant ships were hit off the Bulgarian coast: Malta's Chelsea 3 was struck by three drones and its 15 crew members were rescued, while HS Dignity, flying the flag of Guinea-Bissau, sank, with 11 of its crew reported missing. According to Bulgarian data, four ships were attacked in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone in one month, two of which sank. In the last two weeks at least seven vessels have been hit off the coasts of the two NATO members, and at least 30 sailors have been killed or gone missing.

The response so far is military, not legal. Romanian F-16s shot down two Russian drones over Romanian territorial waters on October 17. On October 20 NATO announced additional patrol aircraft, radars, drones and explosive ordnance experts for the region, and a US P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane is already flying out of Bulgaria's Varna. Bulgaria has asked the Alliance for fighter jets, missile systems and counter-drone protection, and Bucharest has announced closer cooperation with Bulgaria and Turkey.

And one more uncomfortable detail: NATO hasn't officially attributed all the attacks to Russia, nor has it been established where the drones that hit the Vine Trader came from. Bulgarian authorities speak of "serious indications" of Russian responsibility but admit they have no conclusive proof. Moscow has not claimed responsibility. So the ships are sinking, the sailors are disappearing, and officially - nobody fired a shot.

The Balkans know this scene: a war that officially doesn't exist until it knocks on someone's door. The Croatian union is at least asking for something concrete - for a sailor to have the right to say "no." The question is whether that right comes before the next ship goes down, or after it.