South Korean Evangelical pastor stabbed to death in southeastern Turkey

Unsplash

In mid-November, a South Korean evangelical pastor was stabbed to death while he was walking down the street in southeastern Turkey.

Pastor Jinwook Kim began serving as a pastor in the area just earlier this year, although he had lived in Turkey for five years already. He died from his wounds after he was taken to the hospital.

As a sad twist to the story, the pastor's wife is expecting to deliver their second child last week.

According to local authorities, the pastor was a random victim of a 16-year-old thief trying to steal phone.

But Bruce Allen of Forgotten Missionaries International (FMI) sees the incident as targeted assassination. "From other ministry colleagues who work in that region, I have been informed that underage perpetrators, like the 16-year-old who [was] arrested, they've been used in a number of assassination attempts against Christians in Turkey recently, to lessen legal liability," Allen says.

If minors are arrested, they typically receive less sentencing compared to adults.

Just a few days after pastor Kim's tragic attack, another evangelist from the region received death threats, Allen said. Allen suspects that pastor Kim's death was not a random attack.

Turnkey is officially a secular state, but in the past few years, political sentiment has raised violence against non-Muslims.