TURKEY – Christian Couple Kidnapped in Turkey

Gatestone Institute | Uzay Bulut | Jan. 20, 2020


Since January 11, an elderly Assyrian Christian couple, Hurmuz Diril (71) and his wife Şimoni (65), have been missing from the Assyrian village of Mehr, Kovankaya in the province of Sirnak, in Turkey’s southeast. A neighbor told their family that “they had been kidnapped by armed men.” (Image source: iStock) Since January 11, an elderly Assyrian Christian couple, Hurmuz Diril (71) and his wife Şimoni (65), have been missing from the Assyrian village of Mehr, Kovankaya in the province of Sirnak, in Turkey’s southeast. In wintry, sub-zero conditions, their children, followed by military special units, have been searching for them.

“We found out that my parents were missing when I and my relatives… went to our village on January 12. My father’s uncle last saw them in the morning of January 11…. And my brother last spoke to them on January 7,” the couple’s son, Father Adday Remzi Diril told the newspaper Cumhuriyet.

Father Diril is an Assyrian-Chaldean priest in Istanbul and well known for his life of service to more than 7,000 Iraqi Christian refugees displaced throughout Turkey.

“A neighbor of ours in the village initially did not tell us my parents were kidnapped because he was scared,” Diril told the Mesopotamia News Agency, “but later said they had been kidnapped by armed men.”