Shock in Turkey: two masked men entered a church in Istanbul and killed a person

A person was killed this Sunday by two masked men in a church in Istanbul, Turkey, while mass was being celebrated.

The two attackers opened fire mid-morning inside the St. Mary’s Church in the Sariyer neighborhood in the European part of the city, Turkish Interior Minister Ari Yerlikaya said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack and the authorities have opened an investigation.

The victim, identified by the minister by the initials CT, was shot and died despite attempts to save his life, he said. Turkish authorities have banned the press from disseminating information about the attack.

In the Vatican, Pope Francis expressed solidarity with the Catholic faithful of the church attacked. “I express my closeness to the community of the church of Santa Maria in Istanbul, which during mass was the subject of an armed attack which caused one death” declared the Pope after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.

In Istanbul, witnesses told the media that worshipers in the church fled en masse after the attack.

In the images broadcast on television and taken at the scene of the attack, the police and an ambulance can be seen in front of the church door.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences and said “necessary measures have been taken to capture the perpetrators” of the attack “as soon as possible,” the AFP news agency reported.

It was not immediately clear whether it was an attack on the church or a specific and deliberate murder.

The church is managed by Italian Franciscan friars sent on an ecumenical dialogue mission.

“The concrete reasons are not known, they are yet to be verified, but the elements that seem to emerge so far suggest an attack for religious reasons, a motivation of religious intolerance”, Monsignor Massimiliano Palinuro, apostolic vicar of Istanbul, told Vatican News . .

The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, expressed his “condolences” and his “firm condemnation” for the attack, in a post on the social network responsible.”

In December, Turkish security forces arrested 32 people suspected of belonging to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and preparing attacks on synagogues, churches and the Iraqi embassy.

The arrests were made in nine cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, the capital.

In recent months, Turkey has strengthened operations against ISIS members, who have claimed responsibility for several attacks in the country, including the January 1, 2017 attack against a nightclub in Istanbul, which left 39 dead.