Father Edip Daniel Savci, 55, was reportedly taken Wednesday, November 28, by unidentified people at around three pm local time.
The kidnappers apparently stopped the priest’s car while he was traveling to the Mor Yakup Monastery in a village near the town of Midyat town in Mardin province, BosNewsLife monitored. His car was later found abandoned in the area on Wednesday, November 29. A local clergyman had received a phone call demanding a ransom for his release, several news reports said.
Turkish police are working to secure the release of the missing priest, security officials said Thursday. November 29. Turkey’s Syriac Christian community numbers an estimated 25,000 people and is based mainly in Mardin, in the largely Kurdish south-east, and in Istanbul, experts say.
OLDEST FAITH
Syriac Christians are one of the faith’s oldest denominations and are found in modern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Many still speak the language Jesus spoke in the Bible. Christians in the Midyat region have told BosNewsLife in previous interviews they are concerned about an increase in Islamic extremism and urged authorities to improve protection.
While it was not immediately clear who were behind Wednesday’s hostage taking, the kidnapping has underscored an apparent increase in attacks on Turkey’s Christian minoriy have increased recently. A Catholic priest was shot dead last year and three Protestants were tortured and killed at a Christian publishing house in April in the southeastern town of Malatya.
Five men accused of the attack on the Protestant missionaries went on trial in the town of Malatya last week, but the hearing was immediately adjourned as lawyers of the victim’s families and Turkish churches demanded more time to prepare themselves.
Lawyers have complained about the fairness of the trial, saying prosecutors seem to make the victims’ attempts to spread Christianity look like a “provocation” in an attempt to reduce the charges against the murder suspects.
