A sweeping armed attack across several locations in Turkey’s Mersin province left six people dead and eight others injured on the event date, according to the supplied report, which said a manhunt was underway for the suspect.
The sequence of violence began in the Çamlıyayla district’s Darıpınarı neighborhood, where Metin Ö., 37, allegedly shot and killed his former wife, Arzu Özden, 32. From there, the suspect reportedly drove to a restaurant in Tarsus’s Kadelli Dörtler neighborhood and opened fire inside the business. The restaurant’s owner, Sabri Pan, was taken to hospital, while a worker, Ahmet Ercan Can, died at the scene.
The attacks then continued in separate locations. The report said the suspect shot and killed Yusuf Oktay, who was herding animals in Kaburgediği neighborhood, and later killed truck driver Abdullah Koca at a fuel station in Yeniköy. At the same station, Gökay Sefiloğlu, a pump attendant, also died. Together with the earlier killing of Özden, the number of fatalities reached six.
The violence also left a trail of injuries. Eight people were wounded along the route of the attacks and were taken by ambulance to Tarsus State Hospital and nearby hospitals. One of the injured, restaurant worker Mehmet Han Topal, described the attack as sudden and chaotic, saying the suspect entered the business, drew a pistol and began shooting before he fled outside to alert others.
Security forces responded quickly. The report said multiple gendarmerie units were deployed to the area, and helicopter-supported operations were continuing. The suspect’s car, a vehicle bearing plate number 01 B 9171, was found near Karakütük neighborhood, and authorities believed he had escaped into a wooded area.
The scene captured in the report suggests a rare but deeply destabilizing chain of violence, with the suspect moving from one location to another and leaving casualties in each place. The account does not describe a broader motive, but it does show that officials were treating the case as an active manhunt rather than a contained incident.
The dead were taken to the morgue at Tarsus State Hospital. The report also noted that investigators were still working through the geography of the shootings, which involved both domestic and public spaces: a home neighborhood, a restaurant, grazing land and a fuel station. That spread likely complicated the initial response and added urgency to the search.
Such attacks often leave communities with both immediate grief and lasting uncertainty, especially when they move rapidly between ordinary civilian locations. In this case, the route itself became part of the story, tying together a family killing, a restaurant shooting and two additional fatal attacks in separate parts of the district.
Local officials were still piecing together the full sequence, and the available report left motive and legal consequences unresolved. Even so, the basic picture was already severe: multiple dead, multiple injured, and a suspect apparently on the run in rural terrain.
The evidence supplied here is limited to a single local report, so the specific motive, sequence and final legal outcome remain unverified beyond that account. What is clear is that the event date in Mersin was marked by multiple deaths, multiple injuries and an expanding search for a suspect believed to have fled into the countryside.
