Foreign couple lynched by Turks
Donation protected
In an epic love story, a young man moved to Turkey for the love of his life. After meeting his wife to be, they decided to get married and settle down to open a business together. They fell in love with a beautiful, backward, little village, the village of Üçağız, Kekova famous for the ancient Lycian Sunken City, which is the villages attraction. They had yet to find out that they were not welcome. They spent the first part of the year restoring an ancient Lycian ruin, into a beautiful and atmospheric cafe & bar, with their bedroom at the back of the bar in a separated room.
All of their life savings went into this place, all their hard work, blood, sweat and tears to make this beautiful destination, finally the bar was up and running, making many tourists happy and welcomed. They made original Italian homemade pizza, even making their own mozzarella.
On the 7th July things would change.
Whilst the bar was in full swing, a group of villagers decided to vandalise the bars advertising and start attacking the place and us with flying bottles of beer, beer crates and anything they had to hand. The customers were escorted out of the premises and what happened next was nothing short of a movie.
The couple barricaded themselves in their bar, locked the doors, hid valuables and switched off the lights. Through all the shouting and screaming from the lynch mob came shouts in Turkish 'Yabancılar bu da istenilmiyor' (foreigners are not welcome here). The mob broke down the front doors of the bar, chased the couple out through the back of the bar and out of the village, meanwhile the mob destroyed the bar and everything in it.
The Jandarma came after the couple called them and were also attacked, by this, now 150 people strong, resorting to firing their guns, for what little use it did them. The Jandarma ushered the couple into their van, and tried to make their way through the village but were blocked off several times by the lynch mob. After they got out of the village and down the road, they thought they were safe buy a small car came flying up behind them, overtaking and jacknifing in the road to stop the Jandarma, the guns came out and were fired, slowly the driver got the van past the mob and out to the next big town. After the small car went back towards the village but stopped at another foreigners place, broke in and attacked him by hitting him over the head with a large heavy object. All the while the lynch mob of 150 people were all congregated in the square of this small, backward village, attacking cars as they drove in shouting that foreigners are not welcome.
My wife and I have been forced from our home, our livelihood and our choice of lifestyle because a village didn't want to share and got jealous at how much our customers enjoyed coming to what we created. We lost everything, since returning, to try and save something, we found that they broke into our bedroom/depo and poured all of our drink and food stock over our bed, our clothes, which they piled in the middle of the room and even defacated and urinated on our clothes.
We now do not know what to do, we have left and are now looking for regular jobs, so that we can save and start again, it was hard enough the first time, the thought of how many years it took the first time to save enough.
We love entertaining and providing quality food and drink and that is where our hearts lie. We have found a new location, right on the Beach and have plans for an outdoor cinema, it is in the heart of a typical expat and tourist location so has all the modern forward thinking and attitude towards life most have come to expect but still with the Turkish charm.
Please help us,
we would love to be able to make people happy again. We would love to give back to you too! So please come and visit us and have an evening with us. Can't ask more than that.
Thank you in advance, Hatira & Marco
All of their life savings went into this place, all their hard work, blood, sweat and tears to make this beautiful destination, finally the bar was up and running, making many tourists happy and welcomed. They made original Italian homemade pizza, even making their own mozzarella.
On the 7th July things would change.
Whilst the bar was in full swing, a group of villagers decided to vandalise the bars advertising and start attacking the place and us with flying bottles of beer, beer crates and anything they had to hand. The customers were escorted out of the premises and what happened next was nothing short of a movie.
The couple barricaded themselves in their bar, locked the doors, hid valuables and switched off the lights. Through all the shouting and screaming from the lynch mob came shouts in Turkish 'Yabancılar bu da istenilmiyor' (foreigners are not welcome here). The mob broke down the front doors of the bar, chased the couple out through the back of the bar and out of the village, meanwhile the mob destroyed the bar and everything in it.
The Jandarma came after the couple called them and were also attacked, by this, now 150 people strong, resorting to firing their guns, for what little use it did them. The Jandarma ushered the couple into their van, and tried to make their way through the village but were blocked off several times by the lynch mob. After they got out of the village and down the road, they thought they were safe buy a small car came flying up behind them, overtaking and jacknifing in the road to stop the Jandarma, the guns came out and were fired, slowly the driver got the van past the mob and out to the next big town. After the small car went back towards the village but stopped at another foreigners place, broke in and attacked him by hitting him over the head with a large heavy object. All the while the lynch mob of 150 people were all congregated in the square of this small, backward village, attacking cars as they drove in shouting that foreigners are not welcome.
My wife and I have been forced from our home, our livelihood and our choice of lifestyle because a village didn't want to share and got jealous at how much our customers enjoyed coming to what we created. We lost everything, since returning, to try and save something, we found that they broke into our bedroom/depo and poured all of our drink and food stock over our bed, our clothes, which they piled in the middle of the room and even defacated and urinated on our clothes.
We now do not know what to do, we have left and are now looking for regular jobs, so that we can save and start again, it was hard enough the first time, the thought of how many years it took the first time to save enough.
We love entertaining and providing quality food and drink and that is where our hearts lie. We have found a new location, right on the Beach and have plans for an outdoor cinema, it is in the heart of a typical expat and tourist location so has all the modern forward thinking and attitude towards life most have come to expect but still with the Turkish charm.
Please help us,
we would love to be able to make people happy again. We would love to give back to you too! So please come and visit us and have an evening with us. Can't ask more than that.Thank you in advance, Hatira & Marco
Organizer
Marco Nardecchia
Organizer
