Student opens fire at Turkish school, 4 killed
A student opened fire randomly at two classrooms at a school in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 20 others, an official said.
Kahramanmaras provincial Gov Mukerrem Unluer said the student, who was also killed, arrived at the school, armed with guns belonging to his father, a retired police officer father. He was carrying five firearms and seven magazines.
The victims included a teacher and three students, Unluer said. The motive of the attack was not immediately known. Earlier, media reports said authorities sent police and ambulances to the school in Kahramanmaras' Onikisubat district, after gunfire was heard there.
Video footage from the scene showed at least two people being put into ambulances. A day earlier, 16 people, mostly students, were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Sanliurfa province. The 18-year-old attacker, armed with a shotgun, fired randomly inside a vocational high school in Siverek, Sanliurfa province. He later killed himself with the same shotgun after being "cornered by police," Gov. Hasan Sildak said. The attack left 10 students, four teachers, a canteen employee and a police officer hurt, Sildak said. While most of them were being treated in Siverek, five of the teachers and students were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital because their conditions were more serious, the governor said.
The motive for the attack remains unclear. School shootings are rare in Turkiye.
The attacker did not have a criminal record, Sildak said. The school had been declared safe, and no permanent police officer was assigned to protect it, he added, calling the shooting an "isolated incident."
