Black Sea becomes world's deadliest shipping route as deaths top Hormuz

At least 40 seafarers have been killed across more than 570 attacks on merchant shipping in the Black Sea during 2026, figures from maritime security firm Ambrey and the International Maritime Organization show — a death toll that now exceeds the 24 fatalities recorded around the Strait of Hormuz and the wider Middle East over the same period.

The comparison is stark. The IMO had confirmed 120 attacks in and around Hormuz as of October 22, against the Black Sea's 570-plus, meaning a ship transiting the Black Sea corridor has faced a far higher probability of being struck — and killed — than one in the Persian Gulf theater. The Financial Times first reported the compiled figures.

What happened in the latest four-day wave?

The violence began on Friday when the Comoros-flagged Khoryv, a 43-year-old vessel sailing from Türkiye toward the Danube port of Sulina, was hit by a drone approximately 13 nautical miles off Romania's Constanta port. The ship capsized. One seafarer died, three remain missing, and nine were rescued.

Romanian president Nicușor Dan blamed Russia directly, calling the strike another escalation of Moscow's war against Ukraine. A Romanian navigational warning issued on Sunday confirms the Khoryv remains partially submerged and drifting south of its original position; ships must keep at least one nautical mile clear.

Friday also brought Russian claims of strikes on port facilities at Vylkove on the Danube, including installations allegedly used to operate unmanned surface vessels, plus a claimed strike on a cargo ship heading for Odesa.

How did the attacks escalate through the weekend?

• Saturday: Russia's defence ministry claimed strikes on Chornomorsk, saying it destroyed a workshop manufacturing unmanned surface vessels, and reported hitting another cargo ship bound for Odesa.
• Sunday: Moscow claimed two more cargo-vessel strikes — one overnight against a ship heading for Chornomorsk, another during the day against a vessel bound for Odesa.
• Today: Russia announced a further attack on an Odesa-bound cargo ship and strikes on cargo-handling infrastructure at three berthing terminals in Chornomorsk.

A caveat attaches to every claim beyond the Khoryv: none of the Russian assertions about additional vessels or port installations has been independently verified. The identities of the ships remain unknown, and successive announcements may not involve separate vessels.

How far has the danger zone spread?

The escalation extends beyond Ukrainian territorial waters. Ambrey records nine merchant vessels struck in Romanian and Bulgarian waters during October alone, several of them sunk or badly damaged close to the coastlines of two NATO members. The consultancy's warning is blunt: merchant vessels cannot be assured of protection from drones operating near NATO territory. NATO has responded by announcing additional maritime patrol aircraft, surveillance equipment and drones to strengthen monitoring of the region — monitoring, not interception.

What does this mean for rates, insurance and cover?

The commercial consequences are already priced in. War-risk insurance premiums for some Black Sea voyages have climbed to as much as 15% of a vessel's hull value — roughly twice the levels reported for the Persian Gulf. For a mid-sized bulker with a hull value around $15 million, that translates to as much as $2.25 million for a single voyage's war cover, a cost that effectively rules out all but the highest-paying cargoes.

The Joint War Committee has widened its listed area to cover almost the entire Black Sea, excluding only the territorial waters of Türkiye, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia. That expansion pushes more call options into higher-rated premium territory for owners and their clubs.

For charterers and forwarders routing grain, ore and other Black Sea cargo, the arithmetic is deteriorating on both sides of the ledger: rising insurance cost per voyage against a shrinking pool of owners willing to send tonnage in at all. With drone activity now recorded inside NATO-adjacent waters and port infrastructure at Chornomorsk and Vylkove under repeated claimed attack, the trajectory points toward further premium escalation and thinner capacity — unless verification of the latest strikes forces a political rather than commercial response.