Diego Valencia

Description

At 6:30 pm on 25 January 2023, terrorist Yassin Kanza went to St. Isidore’s parish church in Algeciras. There he began to harangue the congregation, calling on them to renounce their Christian faith. After the argument he left, only to return an hour later, armed with a machete. He attacked and gravely wounded the priest, Fr. Antonio Rodríguez, who was taken to the Puerta de Europa hospital in Algeciras.

Kanza then went to the parish church of La Palma, shouting ‘Death to Christians’ and ‘Allah is great’. He entered the church, knocking over candles and other items. The sacristan, Diego Valencia tried to defend the congregation and force him out of the church, but once outside, in the Plaza Alta, Kanza killed him with his machete. The terrorist then proceeded to the neighbouring Europa chapel, which he found closed. He was arrested by local police in the Plaza Virgen de las Lágrimas.

The parish priest of La Palma, Juan José Marina, told Cadena SER that on the day of the attack he was in the neighbouring parish serving mass ‘when someone shouted that there was an attack under way in La Palma. I came running over here and found this’.

‘It was after mass. He went straight for him. We hadn’t received any threats, except just the once. Diego thought he was just one of these people who suddenly go up to the altar and start knocking things over. But I suppose he suddenly realised that he had a large machete and he went for him,’ the priest said. ‘Diego was my feet and my hands’, he said. ‘For me Diego was a man of faith. His death may have been meant for me, but it took him instead’.

Diego Valencia was a married lay sacristan. He had two children.