A former student opened fire at a vocational high school in Siverek, in Turkey’s Sanliurfa province, wounding at least 16 people before killing himself, Gov. Hasan Sildak said Tuesday.
Sildak said the 18-year-old attacker fired randomly inside the vocational high school. He later killed himself with the same shotgun after, as Sildak described it, he was “cornered by police.”
The governor said the attack wounded 10 students, four teachers, a canteen employee and a police officer. Sildak said that while most of the injured were being treated in Siverek, five teachers and students were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital because their conditions were more serious.
Authorities have not publicly identified a motive. Sildak told reporters the motive for the attack was unclear and said school shootings are rare in Turkey.
Sildak also said the attacker did not have a criminal record. He said the school had been declared safe and that no permanent police officer had been assigned to protect it, describing the shooting as an “isolated incident.”
Local reporting and social media accounts cited by Turkish media suggested the attacker may have signaled intent before the shooting. NTV television and other media reports said the assailant threatened an attack on the school on social media prior to the incident.
A student speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency described a sudden escalation inside classrooms. Anadolu quoted Omer Furkan Sayar as saying that the attacker “suddenly entered the classroom and fired,” firing four or five times, with two people hit before he moved into the next classroom.
Sayar said his classmates tried to flee while the shooting continued. Anadolu reported him saying, “We first threw ourselves to the ground and then two of us jumped out of the window.”
Sayar added that the attacker “didn’t say anything, he entered and started to shoot directly.” Earlier media reports had described students being evacuated and police special operations units being deployed after the assailant refused to surrender.
Sildak said the attacker was cornered inside the building through police intervention and died after shooting himself. He said a “comprehensive” investigation into the shooting would be carried out, as video footage showed dozens of students running out of the school toward the gate and onto the street.