Turkey reels from second school shooting in 48 hours, four dead

A middle school student opened fire at two classrooms in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş, killing four people and wounding 20 others in an attack that sent parents rushing to the school and drew a heavy police response.

Kahramanmaraş provincial governor Mükerrem Ünlüer said the dead included a teacher and three students. Authorities said the student arrived carrying guns believed to belong to his father, a retired police officer, and was armed with five firearms and seven magazines. Turkish police secured the area after reports of the shooting spread through the community.

The attack on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, came amid immediate concern over how the weapons were brought onto school grounds and what led the student to open fire inside the classrooms. Officials have said the case is now part of a broader investigation into possible motives and into the firearms used in the assault.

It was the second school shooting in Turkey in two days. A day earlier, on Tuesday, April 14, a former student opened fire at a high school in Siverek, in neighboring Şanlıurfa province, wounding at least 16 people, including students and teachers, before killing himself after being cornered by police.

Hasan Sildak, the governor of Şanlıurfa province, said the earlier attacker used a shotgun. Officials said the former student fired randomly inside a vocational high school before taking his own life with the same weapon. The back-to-back attacks have put school security and access to firearms under sharp scrutiny, especially in Turkey’s southeast, where both shootings unfolded within 48 hours.

School shootings remain rare in Turkey, but the two assaults have shaken communities in Kahramanmaraş and Şanlıurfa and left officials facing urgent questions about warning signs, family access to guns, and the protection of students and teachers inside schools.