BEIRUT, August 21. /TASS/. A Razoni dry cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain under the flag of Sierra Leone has changed its route and is heading from the Eastern Mediterranean to the coast of Egypt, according to the Marine Traffic ship tracking service.
The bulk carrier is now close to the Karpas Peninsula, where the Cypriot city of Rizokarpaso is located. The tracking service says that one of the Egyptian ports will become its new destination.
The Razoni dry cargo ship became the first vessel carrying Ukrainian grain to leave Odessa via the humanitarian maritime corridor after Russia, the United Nations, Turkey and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul on July 22. The dry cargo ship arrived to Istanbul in the evening of August 2, mooring seven nautical miles from the Bosphorus Strait. Representatives of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) inspected the vessel in the morning of August 3. On the same day, the bulk carrier passed through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, leaving Turkish waters on August 4.
The Razoni was originally expected to dock on August 6 in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, but a local customer rejected the cargo due to a delivery delay. A source in the port administration told TASS that the supplier of Ukrainian grain was looking for a new buyer in the Middle East and North Africa region.
On August 16, Reuters reported, citing satellite images provided by Planet Labs, that the bulk carrier was anchored off the port of Tartus, but there was no confirmation of this information from the Syrian authorities. On August 11, it was reported that 1,500 tonnes of corn out of 26,000 on board the ship were to be unloaded in Turkey. At that time, it was impossible to determine the exact location of the bulk carrier as it had a transponder off.
According to the press service of the UN office in Istanbul, 563,317 tonnes of food were exported from Kiev-controlled Black Sea ports from August 1 to 15.