Vandals have desecrated the graves of 20 Christians, including immigrants from Russia, at the Ortaköy cemetery in Ankara, the Hurriyet newspaper reports.
According to the paper, the grave desecrators are six teenagers. They toppled and broke the headstones. The headstones bore Russian surnames. In total, the cemetery, where non-Muslims are buried, contains 72 graves.
The vandals were detained by the cemetery’s security service, then questioned by police, after which they were released. It is reported that they must now compensate the relatives of the deceased for the damage caused.
Earlier, in an interview with Sputnik Turkey, Russia’s ambassador to Ankara, Alexei Yerkhov, stated that the escalation of the situation in Syria’s Idlib had provoked anti-Russian propaganda on Turkish social networks, and he also spoke of a threat made against him.
