11 wounded in Turkiye school shooting; student suspect held

At least 11 people were wounded after an attacker opened fire near a high school in western Turkiye on Tuesday, officials said. The suspected shooter was arrested.

At least two of the injured were in serious condition, Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said in a statement on X. He said the motive was not yet known.

The attack took place in front of a vocational and technical high school in Turgutlu district in Manisa province, according to the provincial governor's office. Police and medical teams were immediately sent to the scene.

HaberTurk news channel reported that the assailant was a student at the school. It said he arrived armed with a shotgun taken from his grandmother's house and fired randomly near the school before trying to flee on foot.

Gurlek said two chief prosecutors had been appointed to investigate the shooting, including claims that the student had been bullied at the school. He added that the assailant's parents and grandfather, who owned the gun, had been taken into custody as part of the investigation.

Cumhuriyet newspaper reported that anxious parents rushed to the school and confrontations broke out between them and police, who blocked entry to the building.

The attack came months after two school shootings earlier this year shocked Turkiye. Security at educational institutions was increased at the start of the academic year last week.

In April, 16 people, most of them students, were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in Sanliurfa province in the southeast. The attacker later killed himself. The next day, a 14-year-old student opened fire on two classrooms at his school in nearby Kahramanmaras province, killing eight students and a teacher and wounding 13 others. The attacker was killed by police.

Tuesday's shooting near the school in western Turkiye left 11 people injured, with two in serious condition, and investigators are examining the motive as well as claims that the suspect had been bullied.