Two masked attackers shot and killed one individual throughout a church service on Sunday in Istanbul, Turkish officers mentioned. The motive was not instantly clear.
The assault came about round 11:40 a.m. on the Santa Maria church, an Italian Catholic church within the Sariyer district of Istanbul, the inside minister, Ali Yerlikaya, wrote on the social media platform X. Mr. Yerlikaya gave solely the sufferer’s initials, C.T., and mentioned that an investigation into the taking pictures was underway and that the authorities had been in search of the assailants.
“Such provocations won’t ever be allowed in our nation,” Akif Cagatay Kilic, a prime adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, wrote on X. “The perpetrators will probably be caught as quickly as attainable and held accountable earlier than justice.”
The federal government-appointed governor of Istanbul, Davut Gul, mentioned in televised remarks on the scene that the sufferer was a 52-year-old Turkish citizen.
“Two masked assailants went in, shot at somebody and that individual was killed,” Mr. Gul mentioned.
In accordance with The Related Press, the sufferer’s nephew recognized him as Tuncer Cihan, who he mentioned was mentally disabled. The A.P. reported that Mr. Cihan mentioned the goal of the taking pictures was the church, not his uncle, who had “no connection to politics or (felony) organizations.” He added that his uncle had been invited to attend the church “and was a sufferer of destiny.”
Among the many crowd on the church was the Polish consul in Istanbul, Witold Lesniak, together with his spouse and two of his kids.
‘‘We’ll discover the perpetrators eventually, perhaps inside 24 hours,’’ Mr. Erdogan mentioned in a telephone name to Mr. Lesniak and to the church’s priest, Anton Bulai, based on a video of the telephone name that was launched by the president’s director of communications.
Pope Francis expressed sympathy for the Santa Maria church group on Sunday, and Italy’s overseas minister, Antonio Tajani, acknowledged his “sorrow and agency condemnation” of the killing in a publish on X.
Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, wrote on X, “We’ll by no means permit those that attempt to destroy our unity and peace by attacking the spiritual locations of our metropolis.”
The authorities didn’t present additional particulars concerning the assault or about whether or not the assailants had been suspected of hyperlinks to any terrorist group.
In latest a long time, Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation with a secular state system, has witnessed a number of assaults towards Christian communities.
In 2007, a distinguished Turkish Armenian journalist, a part of the small Christian group in Turkey, was assassinated in broad daylight as he left his workplace in central Istanbul. That very same 12 months, three staff of an evangelist publishing home had been discovered with their throats slit inside their places of work. In 2006, an Italian priest was shot to demise within the northern province of Zonguldak, and in 2007 one other Italian priest was stabbed in Izmir.
Final month, Turkey arrested three folks suspected of belonging to the Islamic State terrorist group who, it mentioned, had been planning to assault church buildings, synagogues and the Iraqi Embassy within the nation, the state-run Anadolu information company reported. Additionally arrested had been 29 different folks linked to the alleged plotters had been additionally arrested, the information company reported.
The Islamic State has been linked to a number of assaults in Turkey lately, together with a bloodbath at a nightclub in Istanbul in 2017, when a lone gunman killed dozens of individuals throughout New Yr’s celebrations.
