Displaying items by tag: Turkey

Scammers are using Turkey and Syria’s earthquakes to trick people into donating to fake causes. These scams claim to raise money for survivors, but instead they channel donations away from real charities into their own PayPal accounts. One of over a hundred recently created fundraisers for Turkey is TurkeyRelief, which joined Twitter and touts for donations. Its PayPal account has received US$900, but that includes $500 from the page’s creator, who donated to their own cause to make them appear authentic. On TikTok Live, content creators make money by receiving digital gifts. TikTok livestreams show photos with sound effects and ask for donations. One video shows a distressed child running from an explosion. Their plea for TikTok gifts is ‘Please help achieve this goal’. But the photo of the child is not from Turkey. The same image was on Twitter in 2018 with the caption ‘Stop African Genocide’.

At the time of writing there are 19,300 dead after earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Rescuers are running out of time to find people alive under the rubble. The death toll will far exceed 20,000, and without shelter, water, fuel or electricity many survivors could yet lose their lives in a secondary disaster causing more harm than the initial quake. Survivors could face danger inside fragile structures amid aftershocks or freeze outside in the snow. Numerous regions await help which it is impossible to provide on the scale needed. Syrian rebel-held areas have even less access to medical care and supplies. The first UN aid lorries have arrived. Pray for more medical equipment, warm clothes, blankets, field hospitals, hundreds more volunteers, medical professionals and search and rescue professionals. Ask God to strengthen those working tirelessly to help. Pray for urgent donations to purchase tents, beds, medical equipment and gas heaters. For an update see

11-year-old Abdel at a Turkey refugee camp spent most evenings reading a New Testament that local Christian workers gave him - to the grief of his Muslim parents. Recently his mother became angry at him and ordered him to do his schoolwork. Abdel told her it reminded him of the passage he had just read in Matthew 19:13-15 about children being kept from drawing close to the Prophet Jesus, as He is known among Muslims. Stunned, his mother asked him where he had read this. Abdel told her the passage was in the Gospel of Matthew. As scripture is given to refugees the missionaries sometimes find children learning the gospel and explaining it to their parents, or vice versa. His mother explained this event to his father and together they sat down and read the New Testament. The missionary said, ‘I am not saying that they accepted Christ immediately, but truly God is doing amazing miracles here.’

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major exporter of grain, led to the blocking of all grain shipments until an agreement called the Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed in Istanbul between Ukraine, Russia and the UN. This agreement will expire on 19 November unless renewed. Renewal negotiations were being facilitated by the UN throughout October until the 29th, when a drone attack on Russian naval ships prompted Russia to suspend participation. Talks resumed on 2 November, with hopes to extend the agreement for a year. On 17 November Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure said the initiative would be prolonged, but only for 120 days.

During October Silk Wave church-planting teams will visit Turkey, Greece, and Egypt to restore worship and plant God’s Word. 37 people will participate from two US Korean churches, with second-term young missionaries working in Istanbul with partners from Istanbul Mission Centre. They will visit gateway churches of the region to hear about the ministry and vision while seeking God’s guidance on how each local church can work together evangelising and church-planting. In Greece the evangelism and church-planting is being pioneered through refugee ministries. In Cairo they will see the ministry of refugee children’s schools and study how they can work together with the missions to the Islamic world which are working in Egypt. Silk Wave asks us to pray for all participants in the field to receive and obey Holy Spirit guidance in every event.

Israel and Turkey have announced the return of full diplomatic ties between the two nations, including the reinstatement of ambassadors and consulate generals. This constitutes an important asset for regional stability and very important economic news for Israelis. Their relationship had deteriorated over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Erdogan has been a harsh critic of Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. Turkey has also hosted several Hamas leaders, which further strained relations between the two nations. Many believe Erdogan’s wish to renew these relations is a result of Turkey's economy floundering and his popularity dipping as a result.

While on vacation in Marmaris, 51-year-old GJH was rushed to hospital after falling and hitting his head. He could not be saved. Due to the circumstances of his death and his son's ‘suspicious’ behaviour, the police launched an investigation and reviewed CCTV footage from the area around their hotel. It showed that GJH's 22-year-old son punched his father on the face, causing him to fall. The suspect was taken into custody by the police before being referred to court on 28 July. Please pray for the safety of this tourist. Data shared by two human rights organisations reported that 531 people were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in official places of detention last year, and torture in Turkey’s prisons has reached unprecedented levels.

All week Europe has been battling wildfires fuelled by soaring temperatures in Portugal, France, Turkey and Spain. Pray for 3,500 Portuguese firefighters battling dozens of blazes in record-breaking temperatures. Pray for the 600 people in Leiria who were forced out of their homes, and over 3,000 who were evacuated in Turkey. Pray for devastated people like 77-year-old Adelino, a Portuguese farmer who said, ‘Everything burned. It looked like the end of the world.’ Pray for Spanish farmers who have lost over 70,300 hectares. Pray for 1,000 French firefighters trying to control two major wildfires. 4,000 hectares have already burned in southwest France.

President Erdogan is giving signals of an imminent cross-border large-scale military incursion into Syria. Military equipment is on the frontier, and artillery shells now pound positions held by Syrian Kurdish armed forces. Senior officials and analysts believe operations against the groups will commence soon, hoping to conclude before the NATO summit on 29 June. ‘We will crack down on them suddenly overnight’, Erdogan told reporters. The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it will coordinate with Syrian troops to fend off any Turkish invasion. An SDF commander said Damascus should use air defence systems against Turkish planes. Turkey’s vowed new offensive will be on areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, a key part of the SDF. Syria warned Turkey there will be no compromise on territorial integrity. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organisation. Syrian Kurdish forces are backed by Washington, and co-ordinated with Syria and its ally Russia. See

The EU is finding it difficult to decrease its dependence on Russian oil and gas. One alternative is the proposed EastMed pipeline, which would carry natural gas extracted from fields under the waters of Israel's and Cyprus's exclusive economic zones to Greece and from there to other European countries. The pre-feasibility studies of the pipeline, conducted from 2015-18 and paid for by the EU, found that the project is ‘technically feasible, economically viable and commercially competitive’. The US under secretary of state for political affairs, meeting with her counterparts in Turkey, has said that more pipelines are needed in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, the USA prefers to steer business to Turkey rather than to America's democratic allies, Cyprus, Israel and Greece. Algerian gas pipelines are also acceptable to the Americans, but the long-planned EastMed pipeline is not.