A Year 5 primary school pupil who survived the shooting in Kahramanmaraş, which left nine people dead at the Ayser Çalık School in the Onikişubat district – in south-eastern Turkey – has recounted the moments of horror and panic she experienced during the attack. “He came into our classroom and said something like ‘There’s no escape’. He wasn’t speaking Turkish, he was speaking English. Because of those words, I don’t want to go to school ever again,” the girl explained.
The girl, identified by the initials F.Ç., hid under her desk alongside a friend during the armed attack at the school, which resulted in the deaths of eight children aged between 10 and 11 and a teacher, who used her body as a shield to protect her pupils and is regarded as a heroine amidst the tragedy.
According to F.Ç.’s account, the attacker began firing as he entered the classroom; she was wounded in the leg whilst jumping out of the window to escape. After receiving medical treatment at the Sütçü İmam University Hospital in Kahramanmaraş, she was discharged. She is now giving her account from a relative’s home, just two days after the tragedy.
F.Ç. says that she managed to survive thanks to a classmate, who shielded her under the table whilst they were hiding. That friend, who was hit by a bullet, was admitted to hospital but has since been moved from the intensive care unit to a general ward, and is fortunately in good health.
“I saw two people jump out of the window and I jumped too to escape. I was the third to jump; those below managed to catch me just in time, but I’m glad I jumped. While they were jumping, he was shooting in the other classroom. My leg was in a lot of pain; then, the deputy headteacher (who caught me as I jumped) got me out of there and we were taken onto the school bus,” the girl explained in statements reported by the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
“He came into our classroom and said: There is no escape!”
The psychological trauma following the shooting at the school, which has now been closed indefinitely by the Turkish authorities, has left the girl deeply affected. “Right now I’m so scared I don’t even want to go home. I don’t want to go back to school either. The fact that the school is near my home affects me a lot; I’m afraid he’ll come back again,” confessed the girl, who gave further details about what happened on that horrific day.
“He came into our classroom and said something like ‘There is no escape’. He wasn’t speaking Turkish, he was speaking English. My mental state has been badly affected; now it appears in my dreams. Because of that words, I don’t want to go to school ever again. I can’t stay at home either; I’m with my grandmother. I’ll go back to school when my mental state improves and I forget what happened,” she told reporters.
She learnt of the deaths of her classmates and her teacher whilst in hospital
F.Ç. learnt whilst in hospital of the deaths of several of her classmates and her maths teacher. Among the fatalities that were her classmates were a girl, Belinay Nur Boyraz, and a boy, Kerem Erdem Güngör.
“I loved Belinay Nur very much. She was a very pretty girl,” she said. “Kerem was also a very popular and funny boy in class. Belinay and I loved each other very much; we used to sit together. We made friendship bracelets for each other and gave each other gifts. We have so many lovely memories. Miss Ayla was our maths teacher; we loved her very much. She was very cheerful and explained maths very well. Everyone loved her. I don’t usually like maths, but thanks to Miss Ayla I started to like it.”
Whilst F.Ç. and other survivors of the school shooting try to recover from the horror of what happened, the governor of Kahramanmaraş has in the last few hours issued a statement confirming the number of victims and the condition of the injured. The official statement notes that nine people — one teacher and eight pupils — died in the attack, not including the perpetrator, identified as İsa Aras Mersinli: a 14-year-old pupil at the school and the son of a retired police commissioner.
Of the 13 injured in the massacre, “8 injured students are being treated in various hospitals, and 5 of them are in intensive care”, added the governor, who urged citizens not to pay attention to false and unverified information being circulated on social media and to rely solely on the information provided by the authorities in Turkey.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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