Death toll from second Turkey school shooting at 10

The death toll in Türkiye’s second school attack in two days rose to 10 after another victim died while being treated in hospital, authorities said.

Authorities said six of the injured who died early Thursday following the shooting the previous day were in critical condition.

14-year-old İsa Aras from Mersin, who opened fire on two classrooms of a secondary school in Kahramanmaraş on Wednesday, killed a teacher and eight students and injured 13 people.

The armed attacker, who was also killed, came to the school with 5 firearms and 7 magazines belonging to his retired police chief father, who was arrested after the attack.

Wednesday’s attack came a day after a former student opened fire at a high school near Şanlıurfa, injuring 16 people. Most of the victims were students. The attacker later committed suicide. As of Thursday, 20 people were detained in connection with Tuesday’s armed attack in Şanlıurfa.

The ministries of interior and education held a joint school security meeting in the capital Ankara on Thursday, attended by both ministers and 81 provincial governors, as well as police chiefs and provincial national education directors.

Turkish Police Department revealed that the suspect’s profile photo on the messaging platform WhatsApp was the photo of Elliot Rodger, a university student who killed six people in California in 2014.

The Ministry of Family and Social Services announced on Thursday that a team has been established to “provide psychosocial support” to students and their families. It is also planned to conduct a comprehensive investigation into similar incidents.

Funeral services were held Thursday afternoon for each of the eight students killed Wednesday, all 11 years old. Ayla Kara, a 55-year-old mathematics teacher who lost her life in the attack, was also buried on Thursday.

Cevdet Yeşil, whose son Adnan Göktürk Yeşil was among the victims, said he ran to school on Wednesday after receiving news of the shooting.

Yeşil said, “And unfortunately, we searched for our child until 17:00. One way or another, our security forces found him.” he said.

“We went to the hospital and located (his remains). We found that he was dead.”

Hundreds of educators gathered in Ankara and Izmir to demand increased school security.

Until this week, school attacks were rare in Türkiye. But on Thursday, dozens of students were arrested for social media posts suggesting they might carry out similar attacks.

Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek announced that 67 social media users were detained due to posts targeting 54 different schools.