Azerbaijan rescues crew from sinking Iranian ship in Caspian Sea
Azerbaijan
rescued all nine crew members of an Iranian cargo vessel on Friday before it
sunk in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan’s state maritime agency said.
Iran
said the ship was owned by the private sector, without giving details about the
owner of the vessel.
“The
ship was carrying tiles... all members of the crew, seven Iranians and two
Indians, were rescued. It sank due to flooding,” the deputy head of Iran’s
Ports and Maritime Organization, Jalil Eslami, told the country’s state news
agency IRNA.
He
did not specify where on the vessel the flooding occurred.
Azerbaijan’s
maritime agency said the vessel had sent a distress signal on Friday afternoon
after getting into trouble near the Azeri port of Lenkoran.
Two
helicopters and a border patrol vessel had then rushed to the area and rescued
the ship’s crew, it said.
Eslami
said the ship was heading to Russia’s Makhachkala port.
