School shooting at Siverek high school injures 16 before gunman kills himself in Turkey.

NEWS:

A former student opened fire with a shotgun at a vocational high school in Siverek, southeastern Turkey, injuring 16 people before killing himself as police moved in, according to Turkish authorities.

The shooting happened on April 14, 2026, at Ahmet Koyuncu Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in Şanlıurfa province. Officials identified the attacker by the initials Ö.K. and said he was born in 2007. Some early news accounts described him as 18 or 19, but the official record released by the provincial governor’s office gave his year of birth rather than a full date.

Video from inside the school shows an armed person wearing a light-colored top moving through a corridor and firing at people in the hallway. Other footage shows students running out of the building as ambulances and police vehicles arrive outside. The visible video supports the core fact that the attacker entered the school armed and opened fire inside the building.

Authorities said the wounded included 10 students, four teachers, one police officer and one cafeteria worker. The victims were first taken to Siverek State Hospital. Initial official accounts said several of the more seriously injured were transferred to hospitals in Şanlıurfa city center for further treatment.

A later written statement from the Şanlıurfa governor’s office said 7 of the 16 wounded had been discharged after treatment. Nine remained hospitalized in Şanlıurfa, including three listed in serious condition.

The governor said the attacker entered the school and fired randomly. He said the shooting began in the school area and continued inside the building before police cornered the gunman. The attacker died after shooting himself with the same weapon, officials said.

The governor also said the attacker had previously attended the school only during ninth grade and was later registered in open education. Officials said he had no prior criminal record. They also said the school had not been classified as a high-risk campus during earlier security assessments and did not have a permanent police post.

The motive had not been officially established. Some media reports said the attacker had posted threats before the shooting, but authorities did not publicly confirm a final motive in the official statements reviewed for this article.

Students and witnesses described panic inside and around the school. One student told reporters that the attacker entered a classroom and fired several times before moving to another room. The student said he and another student escaped by jumping from a window after first dropping to the floor. Another witness said people began running from the school after gunshots were heard and police arrived shortly afterward.

After the shooting, the school was evacuated. Police and emergency crews secured the area, and the attacker’s body was removed for forensic examination. Authorities said both judicial and administrative investigations were opened.

The Şanlıurfa governor’s office later said one suspect had been detained as part of the judicial investigation launched by the Siverek Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. In a later development, Turkey’s General Directorate of Security said 16 suspects had been detained in connection with the investigation into the school attack. The available official wording did not specify each suspect’s alleged role.

The administrative response also widened after the attack. Inspectors were assigned at the request of the governor’s office by the Ministry of National Education and the Interior Ministry’s police branch. The governor’s office said two district police department managers and two district education directorate managers were suspended from duty to allow the investigation process to proceed properly.

Classes at Ahmet Koyuncu Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School were suspended for four days starting April 14. Local reports later said education resumed at the school on April 20 after work at the campus was completed. Police were stationed around the school when students returned.

The Siverek attack was followed the next day by a separate school shooting in Kahramanmaraş, where multiple people were killed at a middle school. Turkish authorities later announced broader security and administrative steps after the two back-to-back school attacks, including measures involving police presence at schools and investigations into online activity related to the incidents.

For the Siverek case itself, the confirmed facts remain narrower: a former student born in 2007 entered his former vocational high school with a shotgun, opened fire, injured 16 people, and killed himself after police intervention. Authorities confirmed the victim breakdown, the later hospital status update, the suspension of four local officials, the appointment of inspectors, and the detention of suspects as part of the continuing investigation.

News story written by DarkGore.

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