Türkiye is reeling after a second school shooting in as many days, after a 14-year-old student killed nine people - eight pupils and one teacher - and wounded 13 others at a middle school in the south-eastern province of Kahramanmaraş on Wednesday, officials said.
Mustafa Çiftci said six of the injured were in critical condition, adding that the attack was not linked to terrorism. “This was solely a personal attack carried out by one of our students, it is not a terror incident,” he told reporters.
Earlier, the province’s governor, Mükerrem Ünlüer, said the attacker had shot himself during the chaos.
Authorities said the eighth-grade student brought multiple firearms to school in a backpack, believed to belong to his father, a former police officer.
The suspect entered two classrooms of fifth-grade students, typically aged 10 to 11, and opened fire indiscriminately.
School shootings are extremely rare in Türkiye, making the back-to-back incidents particularly shocking. Just a day earlier, a former student opened fire at a school in the nearby province of Şanlıurfa, wounding at least 16 people, including students and teachers, before taking his own life.
Asked whether additional security measures would follow, Çiftci said authorities would “take necessary precautions,” without providing further details.
Gun laws in Türkiye are generally strict, with ownership limited to licensed individuals over the age of 21. However, firearms remain relatively widespread, particularly among current and former security personnel.
For residents in the affected regions, the incidents have left more than physical wounds. Teachers, pupils and parents alike are grappling with fear and unanswered questions.
“You send your child to school thinking they are safe,” one local parent told Turkish media. “Now we are not so sure.”
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