Governor: Syrian rocket hitting Turkish school stray missile
Rocket fired from Syria kills woman, wounds student and teacher at school in southern Kilis province
Servet Günerigök
January 18, 2016•Update: January 19, 2016
Ankara
KILIS, Turkey
The rocket from Syria that struck a school in southern Turkey is not a terror attack but a stray missile, Kilis Governor Suleyman Tapsiz said Monday.
"It is not terror incident as no person or institution was targeted, it was only a stray missile," he told a press conference at his governmental office.
At least one woman, a school janitor named Aysegul Polat, died from her injuries she received when Eyup Gokce Imam Middle School was hit by a Katyusha rocket, which also left a female student and a teacher wounded.
The governor said the student, Gulten Canpolat, underwent a medical operation at Kilis State Hospital, and was transferred to the intensive care unit while the injured teacher was discharged from the hospital after receiving ambulatory treatment.
Tapsiz cited the escalating clashes - for the past three days - between different groups on the other side of the Syrian border as reason for Monday's attack.
He said it could not be deemed a terror attack as the rocket had not been targeted at the school.
The governor stressed that the Turkish border units were on alert and that they had made retaliation shots in the area where the missile was thought to have been fired -- a Daesh-held area 20 km from the border according to the estimates.
The blast in Kilis, a city around five kilometers from the Syrian border, came at around 9.30 a.m. local time (0730GMT).
An Anadolu Agency video showed blood stains in the school’s entrance hall and a small crater in the school’s garden.
The force of the blast seemed to have splintered the trunk of a tree and severely damaged a vehicle while windows were blown out and the school’s walls marked by shrapnel.
The governor’s office said the school premises were hit by a “rocket” thought to have been fired from Syria. Two other projectiles landed on nearby wasteland.
"A female janitor working at Nazli Omer Cetin Primary School died in the blast, while a female seventh grade student in the other school was taken to Kilis State Hospital and is under surgery," the governorship said.
Katyusha is a name applied to a range of rockets fired from multiple, vehicle-mounted tubes. The weapon has little guidance but can hit targets up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.
The remains of the rockets have been taken for examination by police.
Kilis lies just across the border from Daesh-controlled Syrian territory.
A local security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the launch site of the rockets had been located by military radar and the army had responded “massively” and neutralized the target.
Turkish territory has often been hit by artillery fire as the Syrian civil war rages just a few kilometers to the south. Such incidents are usually answered with retaliatory fire from the Turkish army.
Last week, Turkey was hit by a suicide bomber who killed ten tourists in Istanbul in an attack attributed to Daesh. Following the attack, Turkish tanks and artillery bombarded Daesh positions in Syria and Iraq. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said around 200 Daesh militants were killed.
Syrian rocket hitting Turkish school stray missile
