Bucharest (AFP)

On Sunday night soldiers were trying to save the cargo of 14,600 sheep in a ship that capsized off the Romanian port of Midia (South-East) in the Black Sea, according to news reports. Emergency Inspectorate (UIS).

Rescuers, backed by gendarmes and divers, tried to straighten the 84-meter-long freighter lying on its side and tow it to the wharf, AFP spokeswoman Ana-Maria Stoica told AFP. from the ISU of Constanta (southeast).

"We hope the sheep in the hold are still alive," said Stoica.

She added that "32 sheep that were trapped outside the ship have so far been saved". Two of the animals were recovered in the icy waters of the Black Sea.

The Queen Hind, flying the flag of Palau with destination for Saudi Arabia, capsized shortly after leaving the port of Midia, for reasons still to be determined, said the spokeswoman.

The 21 crew members - 20 Syrians and a Lebanese - are safe and have been brought back to shore, according to the same source.

"We are shocked by this disaster and call for an urgent investigation and sanctions against the culprits," said the association of sheep farmers (ACEBOP) in a statement.

She recalled having repeatedly asked for legislative amendments that oblige the transport operators to improve the conditions on board ships carrying livestock.

The third largest sheep farmer in the European Union, Romania is one of the leading exporters to the Arab countries. In the last two years, the country has exported two million sheep in total, including Jordan, Libya and Lebanon.

"If we are not able to protect livestock during transport over long distances we should ban outright this type of transport," said ACEBOP, who said focus on the export of meat.

Gabriel Paun, head of the NGO Animals International, said the ship had been "overloaded".

"This sheep transport was to be the 15th this year by the Queen Hind, which had encountered technical problems in December 2018," he told AFP.

His NGO had already denounced the conditions of transport of livestock by sea aboard "death ships", evoking cases where thousands of sheep died of thirst or literally cooked alive during the trip in the middle of summer.

Brussels, for its part, requested an audit of Romania's practices, threatening it with an infringement procedure if "systematic violations" of EU animal welfare legislation were found.

© 2019 AFP