Ammunition box washes ashore on Turkey’s Black Sea coast

SAKARYA

AA photo

An ammunition box, believed to have come from a previously sunken Russian intelligence boat, was found washed ashore on May 7 on a beach in Karasu, a town in the northwestern Turkish province of Sakarya on the Black Sea coast. 

The discovery was reportedly made by a local fisherman, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.  

Officials were notified and gendarmerie teams were dispatched to the beach, where they saw that writing on the chest and ammunition inside it featured the Cyrillic alphabet.  

Officials believe that the ammunition chest belongs to the Russian naval intelligence ship that sank off the Black Sea coast on April 27 after colliding with a vessel carrying livestock.

The Turkish shipping agency GAC indicated at the time that the collision occurred 29 kilometers from the town of Kilyos on the Black Sea coast just north of Istanbul.

Officials will reportedly pass on the chest to the northern sea area command.

Separately, two other boxes were also reported to have washed ashore in the northwestern town of Kaynarca on the Black Sea shore on May 6. These two boxes are also believed to belong to the same sunken Russian boat.