Nine killed in second school shooting in Turkey in two days

A student opened fire on two classrooms at a secondary school in south-east Turkey on Wednesday, killing nine people and wounding 13 others, the interior minister said, in the country’s second such shooting in two days.

Kahramanmaras provincial governor Mukerrem Unluer said the student was armed with guns belonging to his retired police officer father. He was carrying five firearms and seven magazines.

The 14-year-old gunman died but it was not clear whether he was killed by police or killed himself.

Six of the 13 people wounded were in serious condition, interior minister Mustafa Ciftci said.

The motive of the attack was not immediately known.

State-run broadcaster, TRT, identified the attacker as Isa Aras Mersinli, and said his father had been detained for questioning.

Turkish authorities imposed a ban on the broadcast of “traumatic” images from the shooting, warning media organisations to limit coverage to statements from officials.

Earlier, media reports said authorities sent police and ambulances to the school in the Onikisubat district, after gunfire was heard there.

Video footage from the scene showed at least two people being put into ambulances outside the middle school.

It is the second shooting in a Turkish school in two days.

A day earlier, 16 people, mostly students, were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Sanliurfa province. The attacker later killed himself.