Student kills nine in middle school shooting in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey.
NEWS:
A 14-year-old student killed nine people and wounded at least 13 others after opening fire inside a middle school in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, in the country’s second school shooting in two days.
The attack happened on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, at Ayser Çalık Secondary School in the Onikişubat district. Turkish authorities said the dead were eight students and one teacher. The student gunman also died.
The attacker was identified in official prosecution records as İsa Aras Mersinli, an eighth-grade student at the school. Authorities said he arrived with five firearms and seven magazines in a backpack. The weapons were believed to have belonged to his father, a former or retired police officer.
The Interior Ministry said the student entered two classrooms and fired randomly. Early official figures first listed four people dead and 20 wounded. Later that day, the confirmed death toll rose to nine victims, with 13 people wounded. Officials said six of the wounded were in intensive care and three were in critical condition.
Video connected to the case shows the emergency response at the school, with ambulances arriving as police secured the area and crowds gathered near the gate. Reports also described CCTV footage circulating from inside the school that showed the attacker firing at students in a hallway. Turkish prosecutors said videos and images from the attack were shared online despite a court-ordered publication ban, and they opened a separate investigation into people accused of spreading those materials.
Authorities did not announce a confirmed motive. Turkey’s interior minister described the shooting as an individual attack and said initial findings did not indicate terrorism. Police later said initial findings showed the attacker’s WhatsApp profile used an image referencing a U.S. mass killer from 2014, but officials did not establish that as the motive.
The attacker’s father was detained after the shooting and later jailed pending trial. Prosecution information reported after the attack said the student used five pistols registered to his father. Later reports also said the father had taken the teenager to a police shooting range before the attack and taught him how to use pistols.
A later prosecution-linked account said investigators found a document on the attacker’s computer dated April 11 that indicated a major attack would be carried out in the near future. That detail was reported as part of the legal investigation and was not presented by authorities as a completed finding on motive.
The circumstances of the attacker’s death were not clear in the first official accounts. Initial reports said he had killed himself or died during the incident. A later report citing autopsy findings said he died from blood loss after a cut to the back of his leg caused by a sharp object. That point remains one of the details that changed after the first reports.
Turkish officials launched criminal and administrative investigations. The Interior Ministry said four civil inspectors and four police inspectors were assigned to examine the attack. Justice officials also assigned prosecutors to the case. The Kahramanmaraş Governor’s Office said education in public and private institutions across the province was suspended for April 16 and 17 after the shooting.
The same governor’s office later said students and staff from Ayser Çalık Secondary School would continue classes from April 20 at Şehit Tebernuş Özler Secondary School. The plan placed Şehit Tebernuş Özler students in morning classes and Ayser Çalık students in afternoon classes, with 35-minute lessons. The school’s kindergarten class was moved to Şirinler Kindergarten.
On April 22, the Kahramanmaraş Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced a later development involving the attacker’s mother, identified in the official statement by the initials P.P.M. Prosecutors said they reviewed medical records related to the attacker’s health history. According to the statement, two psychologists from two different institutions had recommended child psychiatric treatment before the attack, but the mother did not apply for the recommended medical support.
The prosecutor’s office said the mother was referred to a criminal court with a request for arrest based on alleged negligence. The court ordered her jailed under Turkish criminal procedure rules, and she was transferred to a correctional institution.
The Kahramanmaraş shooting came one day after another school attack in Şanlıurfa province. In that case, a former student opened fire at a high school in Siverek, wounding 16 people before killing himself. After both shootings, Turkey’s interior and education ministries held a nationwide school security meeting with provincial governors, police chiefs, gendarmerie commanders and education officials. Officials said the review covered school entrances and exits, camera systems, visitor procedures, transportation routes, early warning mechanisms, social media risks, digital platforms, access to weapons, crisis response and psychosocial support.
News story written by DarkGore.
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