Posted on November 9, 2026
Last month, after a drone hit the HS Dignity’s hull as it sailed the Black Sea, the 16-member crew was preparing to abandon the sinking cargo ship. They had issued a distress call and saw a boat advancing toward them, thinking it was a rescue vessel.
The driverless boat was actually part of the attack, recounted Ashraf Mamdouh, the vessel’s 42-year-old chief officer, in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
“Of course, we all ran,” he recalled, after the sea drone rammed into the ship and it began to sink. “The whole crew was falling to the deck … nobody could stand properly because of the impact and the chaos. We didn’t have time to finish launching the lifeboats.”
Mamdouh was one of five of the crew of Egyptian and Syrian nationals to survive.
