2024-01-28 20:50:00
The attack took place at 11:40 a.m. (9:40 a.m. CET) at the Catholic Church of St. Mary Draperis in the Sariyer district. The church is administered by Franciscan missionaries sent from Italy, writes the AP agency.
According to the Minister of the Interior, the authorities launched an extensive investigation and arrested the suspects in the evening. It is not yet clear whether anyone else was injured. The Italian agency ANSA wrote that the victim was apparently a homeless man with Turkish citizenship, whom the authorities identified only by the initials CT According to initial reports, the attackers entered the church and started shooting in the air, shooting a man when he confronted them.
“We strongly condemn this heinous attack,” wrote Yerlikaya in a post on the social network. Also Turkish President Recep Tayyip After the attack, Erdogan expressed his condolences to the bereaved and said the authorities had taken all necessary measures to find the attackers. Erdogan spoke with the priest of the church on the phone. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu also offered his condolences to the bereaved and offered help to religious minorities in the city, where, as in the whole of Turkey, the majority of the population is Muslim. “There are no minorities in this city and in this country. We are all true citizens,” he said according to the AP.
Responding to the attack, Pope Francis said he was expressing his “closeness” to the Catholic community in Istanbul. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote on the X network that Italian diplomacy is closely monitoring the situation, condemned the attack and offered his condolences to the bereaved. “I am sure that the Turkish authorities will arrest the perpetrators,” he added.
#Attack #church #Istanbul #Masked #gunmen #killed #person #police #arrested