A former student wounded 16 people in Şanlıurfa a day before a 14-year-old boy killed nine people at a middle school in Kahramanmaraş.
ANKARA, TURKEY — Two school shootings on back-to-back days in southeastern Turkey left nine people dead and 29 others wounded, jolting a country where such attacks have been rare. The second and deadlier attack struck a middle school in Kahramanmaraş on Wednesday, one day after a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Şanlıurfa province.
The violence put Turkish authorities under pressure to explain how two gunmen, both young men with ties to the schools they attacked, were able to enter campuses with weapons on successive days. In the latest shooting, officials said a 14-year-old student entered two classrooms and opened fire, killing eight students and a teacher. The earlier attack wounded 16 people, including students, teachers and a police officer. Investigators were still working to establish motives in both cases late Wednesday, while ministers and provincial officials promised a full inquiry and tighter precautions.
The first shooting began Tuesday in the Siverek district of Şanlıurfa province, where officials said a 19-year-old former student arrived at a vocational high school with a shotgun. Gov. Hasan Şıldak said the gunman fired indiscriminately, first in the schoolyard and then inside the building. Security footage reviewed by local authorities showed students running through corridors as ambulances and police vehicles gathered outside. By the end of the attack, 16 people had been wounded: 10 students, four teachers, a canteen worker and a police officer. Şıldak said the assailant later killed himself as police tried to apprehend him. One witness described panic spreading almost immediately. “He started shooting at anyone who came in front of him,” the witness said, as screams from students and teachers sent people scattering for cover.
Less than 24 hours later, the second attack unfolded in Kahramanmaraş, in the Onikişubat district, at a middle school where officials said a 14-year-old eighth grader arrived carrying five firearms and seven magazines in a bag. Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said the student entered two classrooms used by fifth graders and fired on children and staff, turning a school day into a mass-casualty scene. Eight students and one teacher were killed, and 13 other people were wounded. Çiftçi said six of the injured were in serious condition. Kahramanmaraş Gov. Mükerrem Ünlüer said the weapons were believed to belong to the boy’s father, a retired police officer. It was not immediately clear whether the shooter died by suicide or was killed in the chaos. State broadcaster TRT reported that the father was detained for questioning as investigators examined how the weapons were stored and accessed.
The shootings happened in neighboring provinces in Turkey’s southeast and appeared to share at least one broad feature: both attackers had a direct connection to the schools they targeted. Beyond that, many central questions remained unanswered. Authorities had not publicly established a motive in either case by Wednesday evening. In Kahramanmaraş, Çiftçi said the attack was being treated as a personal act and not as terrorism, a notable point in a region where security incidents are often examined for militant links. In Siverek, Şıldak said the 19-year-old had no prior criminal record. Officials did not say whether either school had received specific threats before the attacks, though the speed of the two shootings intensified scrutiny of campus security, emergency response and access to firearms inside homes connected to former or current security personnel.
School shootings have long been far more common in some other countries than in Turkey, making the back-to-back attacks especially jarring. Until this week, such incidents were widely described by Turkish officials and international news outlets as rare. That rarity helps explain the intense public shock that followed the attacks and the rush by national authorities to frame the events, control the flow of graphic material and reassure families. After the Kahramanmaraş shooting, Turkish authorities imposed restrictions on broadcasting what they described as traumatic images, telling media organizations to limit coverage to official statements. Parents gathered outside the school after hearing reports of gunfire, while emergency crews, police and forensic teams moved through the campus. In Siverek, five of the wounded were transferred from local facilities to hospitals in the provincial center because their injuries were more serious, underscoring the strain on local services even in the first attack, where no deaths were reported.
The legal and procedural response was moving on several tracks by late Wednesday. Prosecutors and police were collecting ballistic evidence, reviewing security camera footage and interviewing witnesses in both provinces. In Kahramanmaraş, investigators were also examining ownership and storage records for the firearms said to have been used by the 14-year-old. The detention of his father signaled that authorities may pursue questions of negligence or unlawful access to weapons, though no public charging decision had been announced. Education and interior officials traveled to the affected areas as the government worked to stabilize schools and hospitals and to address public anger. Çiftçi said authorities would take necessary precautions after the week’s shootings, but he did not lay out immediate new measures. Officials were expected to provide further updates as casualty counts, medical conditions and forensic findings were confirmed.
The human toll stretched well beyond the casualty figures. In Siverek, the victims included adults who had been working or teaching when the gunfire began, along with children who ran for exits or hid in classrooms and corridors. In Kahramanmaraş, the victims were even younger, with officials saying the shooter entered rooms of fifth graders, children generally around 10 or 11 years old. Images from both scenes showed anxious families standing behind police lines and waiting for news outside school buildings. The contrast between ordinary school routines and sudden violence deepened the shock. One day, authorities were explaining how a former student had stormed a high school with a shotgun. The next, they were describing how a middle school student carried multiple guns into class. For many families, the immediate questions were brutally basic: who was alive, who was hurt, and how two attacks could happen so close together before the country had absorbed the first one.
By late Wednesday, the deadliest of the two attacks had left nine people dead in Kahramanmaraş, while the earlier shooting in Siverek had left 16 wounded. Authorities said more medical and investigative updates were expected after hospitals reassessed the injured and prosecutors completed initial evidence reviews.
Author note: Last updated April 15, 2026.