One killed in shooting during mass at a Catholic church in Istanbul

One person was killed in a shooting at a Catholic church in Istanbul on Sunday morning, It was directed at a specific person and caused no injury.Turkish officials confirmed this today.

Istanbul Governor Davut Gül told the press, “One of our 52-year-old citizens has lost his life. The police investigation is ongoing. No one is injured, it was an attack against an individual.”

He thus refuted initial rumors that several people were injured in addition to the dead in the shooting at the Catholic Church of Santa Maria, which occurred around 11:40 a.m. (9:40 GMT) this morning during a Sunday Mass at the shrine. Was. Sariye neighborhood in the north of Istanbul.

Describing the incident, he said, “Two masked men opened fire on CT, who was among those attending mass prayers and tragically lost his life.” Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, on the X Network, formerly on Twitter. According to Turkish digital T24, the dead man, whose identity has not been released, died from a gunshot wound to the head.

President of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, He spoke by telephone to the church’s parish priest, Anton Bulai, and to the Polish consul in Istanbul, Witold Lesniak, both of whom were present at the mass, according to some testimonies.

The Turkish Presidency said in a statement that Erdogan expressed regret to his interlocutors for what happened and assured them that every possible effort was being made to find those responsible and bring them to justice.

St. Mary’s Church, located near the Bosphorus in the Sariyer neighborhood of northern Istanbul, was built in 1866 and is also known as the “Sariyer Italian Church”.