A teenager opened fire with a shotgun at a vocational high school in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, wounding 16 people, including teachers and students, officials said.
The assailant, whom the authorities identified only by his initials, killed himself with his rifle after he was cornered by the police, the officials said.
Such shootings are rare in Turkey. The attacker’s motives were not immediately clear. The authorities were investigating the incident, the Interior Ministry said.
Witnesses interviewed by Turkish television stations recalled chaos when the first shot rang out, with students and teachers running for cover.
In a statement released on social media, the ministry said that those wounded included 10 students, four teachers, a police officer and a cafeteria owner. The school is in the town of Siverek, in Sanliurfa Province.
The assailant had attended the school for one year in the ninth grade, Hasan Sildak, the governor of the province, told reporters in front of the hospital where the injured had been taken.
The attacker had wielded a pump-action rifle and fired from outside the school before going inside, Mr. Sildak said. He called the assault an “isolated incident,” adding that the attacker had no criminal record.
While school shootings are not common in Turkey, stabbings are sometimes reported. In March, a former student entered a high school in Istanbul and stabbed a biology teacher, who later died from her wounds. A student and another teacher were also wounded before the attacker was arrested.
Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief for The Times, covering Turkey and the surrounding region.
The post Ex-Student Opens Fire at High School in Turkey, Wounding 16 appeared first on New York Times.
