Malta Eurovision contestant Davinia Pace has spoken on Facebook on how she avoided a hold-up or possible abduction attempt in Turkey.

She said she was in a taxi with her sister going to their hotel  in Istanbul when two Turkish men tried to force them out of the taxi into a van 'with men with machine guns'.

The taxi driver saved them by driving off at speed, but not before he was punched.

The singer is in Istanbul on a weekend break. She told timesofmalta.com that the  incident happened while the taxi was stuck in traffic. She said the men had been unable to open her car door. When they tried to open the door on her sister's side of the car the driver told them they were tourists. They replied 'we want her'.

No police report was filed because they did not note the particulars of the van.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.