At least 9 killed in Turkey’s second school shooting in 24 hours

ANKARA — An eighth-grade student opened fire at a secondary school in Turkey’s southeast on Wednesday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than a dozen others in the country’s second school shooting in less than 24 hours.

The 14-year-old suspect targeted two classrooms at Ayser Calik secondary school in Turkey’s southeastern Kahramanmaras province, killing nine and wounding 13, Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said.

Turkish authorities didn’t identify the assailant, but Kahramanmaras Governor Mukerrem Unluer said he was the son of a former police officer and is believed to have used his father’s weapons.

The suspect “fired into two classrooms with five firearms and seven magazines,” Unluer told journalists at the scene.

The assailant also died at the scene, according to Unluer, but it remains unclear whether he was killed or committed suicide.

Turkey has relatively strict gun laws requiring licenses and background and health checks for civilian ownership. Automatic weapons are banned and illegal possession carries severe penalties. How the suspect obtained five firearms is unconfirmed.

The school serves the early secondary grades, with students aged between 10 and 14. Videos filmed by bystanders and circulating on social media show children fleeing the school in panic during the shooting.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said prosecutors have launched an investigation. Ciftci, Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu and Education Minister Yusuf Tekin traveled to Kahramanmaras for the investigation.

Ciftci told reporters that all schools in the province will be closed for two days after the incident.

Turkey’s communications directorate urged media outlets to act with “maximum responsibility” in their editorial policies, warning against detailed depictions of violence, highlighting the identities of victims and perpetrators or dramatizing events in ways that could encourage similar acts.

Turkey’s news stations cut live broadcasts from the scene after the warning, instead updating viewers via on-screen tickers.

The attack follows a separate school shooting on Tuesday in neighboring Sanliurfa, where a former student opened fire at a high school, wounding more than a dozen people before committing suicide at the scene.

Increasing calls for Tekin’s resignation

While school shootings are very rare in Turkey, violence in schools, both among students and against teachers, has been steadily rising, according to education unions.

One in four teachers experienced verbal or physical violence at least once last year, according to an annual report released earlier this week by Egitim Sen, a pro-opposition union that campaigns for teachers’ rights and the right to education. Prior to the shootings, in March 2026, a biology teacher, Fatma Nur Celik, was fatally stabbed by a 17-year-old student at a vocational high school in Istanbul.

Wednesday’s attack coincided with thousands of teachers gathering outside the Turkish Education Ministry in Ankara to denounce rising violence in schools and call for the resignation of Education Minister Yusuf Tekin for failing to allocate sufficient budget to address the issue.

He “must immediately apologize to education workers, students and society, and resign from his position,” Egitim Sen said in a statement after Wednesday’s attack.

This developing story has been updated since initial publication.