A former student injured at least 16 people Tuesday after opening fire with a shotgun inside a high school in Turkey before turning the weapon on himself, officials said.
The 18-year-old who targeted the vocational high school in Siverek, located in southeastern Turkey, took his own life with the shotgun after he was “cornered by police,” Gov. Hasan Sildak said.
Video taken at the scene showed students sprinting out of a building as law enforcement and first responders arrived.
The attack left 10 students, four teachers, a school canteen employee and a police officer hurt, according to Sildak, who added that five of the teachers and students were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital because their conditions were more serious.
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The motive for the shooting was unclear. The attacker did not have a criminal record, Sildak said.
The school had been declared safe and no permanent police officer was assigned to protect it, he added, calling the shooting an “isolated incident.”
Sildak told NTV that the attacker started firing indiscriminately, beginning in the school yard before entering the building, Reuters reported.
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One student told the state-run Anadolu Agency that he and a friend jumped out of their classroom window to flee the gunman.
“He suddenly entered the classroom and fired. He fired four or five times. Two people were hit. He then went into the next classroom,” Anadolu quoted Omer Furkan Sayar as saying. “We first threw ourselves to the ground and then two of us jumped out of the window.”
“He didn’t say anything, he entered and started to shoot directly,” Sayar added.
“The individual was cornered inside the building through police intervention and died after shooting himself,” Sildak told reporters, adding that a “comprehensive” investigation into the shooting would be carried out.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
