In the Turkish Bosphorus Straits, a freighter carrying grain from Ukraine that ran aground has been freed again. The freighter was set in motion again by the coast guard with tugboats, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported on Friday. The ship ran aground in the night near Istanbul due to a fault on the rudder in the strait and was anchored off the Bebek district. The Bosphorus was temporarily closed to shipping.
The approximately 170-meter-long ship “Lady Zehma” has loaded 3,000 tons of corn and is on its way to Italy, said the Istanbul-based control center for Ukrainian grain exports. According to the ship information service Marine Traffic, the freighter anchored off the coast of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara on Friday morning.
The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are important thoroughfares connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. According to the authorities, more than 40,000 ships pass through the Bosphorus every year.
Agricultural exports via Ukraine’s Black Sea ports were blocked for months because of the Russian war of aggression. War opponents Ukraine and Russia then signed an agreement separately with Turkey on July 22, with UN mediation, to allow grain exports from Ukraine from three ports. According to estimates, more than 20 million tons of grain products are still stored in Ukraine.
