16 injured, attacker dead in school shooting in Turkey

by · UPI

April 14 (UPI) -- A teenager shot and wounded 16 people at a vocational high school in Turkey Tuesday.

The teen wounded 10 students, four teachers, a police officer, and a cafeteria operator at the Ahmet Koyuncu Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School located in the Siverek district of Şanlıurfa province, in southeastern Turkey, the country's Ministry of the Interior said on X.

The teen then turned the gun on himself and died by suicide after being cornered by police, officials said.

The attacker's motives are not clear, but the authorities are investigating. He was identified only by his initials, Ö.K.

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The teen had attended the school for one year in the ninth grade, Hasan Sildak, the governor of the province, told reporters. Sildak said the teen had no criminal record, The New York Times reported. The shooter used a pump-action rifle and fired it from outside the school before going inside, he said.

"I offer my condolences to all of Siverek, Urfa, and our country, to our education community," Sildak said in a statement.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene.

"He was a kid, about 17, 18 years old. Suddenly, he walked through the front door [of the school yard]. As soon as he entered, he pulled out a gun. It was a long, stocky one, like one of those pump-action shotguns with rims," the BBC reported a witness told IHA News.

"He immediately started shooting left and right. Then he fired towards the school. Then he ran inside. He started shooting at anyone who came in front of him, and then with the students' screams, the teachers' screams, everyone immediately scattered," the witness said.

Injured student Ömer Furkan Sayar told Turkey's state broadcaster, TRT, that the attacker went into at least two classrooms, including the one he was in, the BBC reported.

"First we threw ourselves to the ground, then two of us jumped out of the window. He didn't say anything to us, he just came in and started shooting," he said.

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