On 15th April, two days after the first school shooting in the country, a 14-year-old student killed at least nine people (eight of them being his classmates) and injured 13 others at a middle school in southeast Turkey, officials said.
The number of students and a teacher killed in the attack was eight in the province of Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci told reporters, and six of those injured were in critical condition.
Ciftci said that “this was only a personal attack by one of our students and not a terror event.”
Previously, Governor Kahramanmaras Mukerrem Unluer had reported that the shooter had shot and killed himself in the fray.
Unluer said, “an eighth-grade student showed up with 5 weapons and 7 magazines, which he believed were the property of his former police officer father, in his bag, and entered 2 classrooms of the fifth-grade students, shooting indiscriminately, resulting in deaths and injuries.”
In Turkey, the fifth-grade students are typically between the ages of 10 and 11.
School shootings are extremely uncommon in Turkey. When questioned by reporters whether the authorities would take any action following the shootings this week, Ciftci replied: We will take necessary precautions, without expounding on it.
Broadcaster NTV reported that the father of the shooter was arrested.
In Turkey, gun laws are usually strict, and only those aged 21 and above and licensed to own a gun can possess a gun. Yet, guns are rampant in Turkey, and most security officials are given a chance to carry and possess a gun.
There were unconfirmed videos of some students leaping out of a second-storey window at the school amidst gunshots around the premises. The school had unverified CCTV footage of the attacker shooting two students walking down a hallway.
On Wednesday, the Turkish media captured a video of the school premises that showed ambulances arriving at the school, where the police and crowds had already assembled at the school gate.
Tuesday, a former student opened fire at a school in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, injuring at least 16 people, including students and teachers, before committing suicide.
