Elderly Armenian Woman Attacked in Istanbul

ISTANBUL — An elderly Turkish-Armenian woman has been brutally beaten in her own apartment in Istanbul.

Margarit Chamkoshoglu, 80, has told the Istanbul-based “Agos” newspaper that an unknown man assaulted her upon returning home, had even attempted to kill her.

“I went to market on August 17. Upon my return, I saw someone inside the building: an ugly black man of middle height. As he was standing on the stairs, I thought he was going upstairs. When I opened the door, he assaulted me from behind. As I fell down, he tried to kill me. He uttered no single word, said absolutely nothing. My bag, with 70 Turkish Liras inside, was on the table; he took it and ran away. It is 50 years now I have been living here, but never before had such a thing happened,” said the woman.

The unknown assaulter is thought to have been aware of the hours the woman left or returned home and selected the right moment for committing the crime.

In December of 2012, Maritsa Küçük was stabbed seven times before her throat was slit at her home in Samatya. Two other attacks were carried out in the same month against elderly Armenian women in the Samatya and Bakirköy districts as well. Most recently, 83-year-old Sultan Akyar was attacked in Samatya, after which she underwent eye surgery.