Eight injured in shooting near school in Turkey, suspect detained

On Tuesday morning, a gunman opened fire outside a high school in Turgutlu, a town in western Turkey, resulting in eight people being injured, according to local officials. The assailant was subsequently apprehended by police. School shootings are uncommon in Turkey, but two incidents in April, less than a month apart, heightened public concern over school safety.

One attacker killed nine students and a teacher in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, while the other perpetrator wounded 16 people before taking his own life in Sanliurfa. In response to these attacks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to enhance gun control and prioritize school safety. The education minister and interior minister recently signed a protocol outlining security measures for the upcoming academic year, which started on September 14.

Ciftci stated that authorities have bolstered school security following the April shootings and deployed 31,000 school grounds supervisors for the first time. The interior ministry also conducted a fresh security assessment of schools, assigning police officers to high-risk institutions and designating liaison officers to lower-risk schools.

Police will regularly patrol around schools, inspect school buses, and evaluate abandoned buildings near educational institutions as part of the new security measures.