Turkey school shooting injures 8; suspect detained

Istanbul (AFP) — A gunman opened fire outside a high school in western Turkey on Tuesday, wounding eight people, before being detained by police, local officials said.

The incident happened around 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) in Turgutlu in the province of Manisa, near the western resort city of Izmir, the regional governor’s office said.

School shootings are rare in Turkey, although there were two attacks in April on consecutive days in southern Turkey that sparked widespread anger.

Several media outlets including IHA news agency and NTV private television said students were among the injured, with police and rescuers rushing to the scene.

DHA news agency broadcast CCTV footage of the alleged attacker, a young man wearing black jeans, a black jacket and a green top walking along a street holding what appeared to be a rifle.

IHA had a similar image of what appeared to be the same person with a gun, although this time running.

Footage from outside the school showed police wrestling a man in a white shirt to the ground before leading him away, as a woman screamed, with onlookers pressed against the school fence, filming with their mobile phones.

Authorities have opened an investigation into the incident, the governor’s office said.

The attack came five months after two back-to-back school shootings that raised public concerns about security in Turkish schools.

In April, a 14-year-old opened fire at a school in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, killing a teacher and nine students aged 10 and 11. The attacker died at the scene.

A day earlier, another teenager opened fire at his former high school in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, wounding 16 people before taking his own life when confronted by police.

Following the two attacks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed a deputy education minister and pledged his government would introduce tighter controls on gun ownership.

He vowed school safety would be one of the government’s top priorities.

“When we look at similar attacks around the world, especially in the United States, we see one of the perpetrators’ aims is to terrorize society,” he said.

The attack came a day after Education Minister Yusuf Tekin and Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci signed a protocol setting out security measures for the 2026-2027 academic year, which began on 14 September.