Türkiye Confronts a Crisis as Two School Shootings Unfold within 48 hours

Türkiye has been shaken by two consecutive armed school attacks in Şanlıurfa and Kahramanmaraş within just 48 hours, raising alarm across the country. In Şanlıurfa, a former student of the Siverek Ahmet Koyuncu Vocational and Technical High School opened fire with a shotgun and injured 16 people before taking his own life, according to Euronews Türkiye. 

Just a day later, a much more deadly attack occurred in Kahramanmaraş. An eighth-grade student entered Ayser Çalık Middle School with multiple firearms, resulting in the death of students and teachers. According to reports, a parent stabbed the attacker to stop him from killing more people, and the attack ended as a result. These consecutive incidents have deeply shaken the Turkish public and raised serious concerns among students, parents, and teachers about the safety of schools. 

According to Türkiye’s state news agency Anadolu Agency, the Interior Minister of Türkiye, Mustafa Çiftçi, stated that the eighth grade student brought the firearms and ammunition from his father, who is a retired police officer, and opened fire in two classrooms, which caused a devastating assault. As a result, 10 people were killed, while 13 other people were injured. Authorities also announced that schools in Kahramanmaraş have been closed for two days following the incident. 

As investigations unfold, creepy details and rumors have started to spread among the public about the attackers. Authorities are examining whether the suspects showed signs of isolation, mental health problems, and exposure to violent content. Some older generations describe these incidents as a sign that Generation Z is troubled, but experts say the real causes are a lack of supervision, weak mental health support, easy access to weapons, and the influence of misleading information and harmful online content. 

The father said his son used to play online games, especially war games, and would quickly turn off when someone entered his room. This shows that his father knew about it, but as a parent, he should have kept a closer eye on this. Instead of ignoring, he should have been aware of what his child was doing. A month ago, the boy requested that his father teach him how to shoot, and said he wanted to learn shooting like his friends. On Monday, two days before the attack, the father took his son to the police shooting range with his own gun and fired it, and let his son fire a few shots, as Habertürk states. The father also stated that his guns were kept in the bedroom and stored in locked Maraş boxes, where all firearms and ammunition were. He said the magazines were never attached to the weapons, and that he always took the guns and magazines from separate boxes when he needed them. He added that the boxes were self-locking and always kept locked, but he does not know how his son opened them, as he does not remember ever opening the boxes while he was there. 

According to the BBC, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Kahramanmaraş stated that the mother did not consider her son’s psychological condition adequately and failed to fulfill her responsibilities. The school guidance service recommended that his parents take him to a psychiatry service. However, when they took him to the police psychological service, they were told there were no issues and that he was intelligent, so they did not take the child to psychiatric clinics for treatment. As a result, both the mother and the father of the attacker were arrested on the charge of “causing death by negligence.” This charge refers to a situation where a person unintentionally causes someone’s death as a result of a lack of attention. 

These recent events have also raised questions about whether enough action has been taken by the government to prevent such violence. Just last month, on March 2, a female teacher named Fatma Nur Çelik, who worked at Taşdelen Borsa İstanbul Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, was killed in a stabbing attack by a male student. Similar attacks happened twice this month, and there were many deaths, which indicates that not enough action is being taken. Even though these tragedies were serious, no nationwide day of mourning was declared, and schools were not widely closed. This led to public criticism, especially since mourning is sometimes declared even for events outside Türkiye, which raised questions about why it was not declared for an incident directly affecting the country. 

The attacks have also revealed serious weaknesses in emergency preparedness within schools. In many public schools in Türkiye, there are often no security guards present. This is due to limited funding, although their presence is important for basic school safety. Security guards can help control entry so that no one can freely walk into the school without being checked. In addition, people are not generally aware of lockdown procedures, and in many cases, students, teachers, and other staff are not trained beforehand, like drills, about what to do in such emergency cases. It is seen in the news that students jumped from windows in panic, which reminds the importance of lockdown procedures. 

In countries like the United States, many schools have alarm systems and lockdown protocols, where doors are immediately locked, and students stay inside classrooms during danger. Experts suggest a lockdown system should be introduced in Türkiye, and by doing drills, the school community should be trained if an attack happens. Even if these types of attacks were not common in Türkiye before, this does not mean that being unprepared or not trained for lockdown situations was acceptable or sufficient.  

Ultimately, these attacks highlight an important truth: education is not only about academic learning. Preventing such tragedies goes beyond security measures; it also needs stronger family awareness, early support systems, and responsible control over firearms. The events in Kahramanmaraş and Şanlıurfa are not only acts of violence, but also warnings that protecting the future depends on how well society understands and supports young people before crises happen.

Writer: Zeynep Sözbilir

Editor: Cemre Sanlav