11 hurt as student opens fire outside Turkiye school

AFP -- A teenager opened fire outside their high school in western Turkiye on Tuesday, wounding 11 people before being detained by police, a minister said.

The incident happened around 8am (10am PKT) 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 Turkiye, although there were two attacks in April on consecutive days in southern Turkiye that sparked widespread anger.

“Eleven students were injured, two of them seriously.. The minor who carried out the attack was quickly apprehended and taken into custody,” Justice Minister Akin Gurlek wrote on X.

He said the suspect’s parents and grandfather had also been detained by investigators probing the attack, which saw police and rescuers rushing to the scene alongside panicked parents.

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.