Camilla Jessen
Investigation continues after workplace assault.
A 15-year-old apprentice has died after coworkers carried out what they claimed was a “joke,” violently assaulting him with a high-pressure air compressor and causing fatal internal injuries.
Assault in workshop
On 14 November, Muhammed Kendirci was working at a carpentry warehouse in Bozova, Turkey.
According to local outlet Milliyet, two older colleagues, identified as journeyman Habip Aksoy and another unnamed man, restrained the boy, tied his hands and pulled down his trousers.
The pair allegedly inserted the nozzle of a high-pressure air compressor into his rectum and discharged it. The blast ruptured his intestines and organs.
First responders took him to Harran University Research and Application Hospital, where he remained in intensive care for five days.
He died on 19 November.
Parents demand answers
Speaking to Gazete İpekyol, his mother, Nebihe, questioned how such an attack could occur unnoticed in a busy workshop.
“Impossible! They should hear him shouting — they’re not deaf,” she said, adding that her son’s trousers, underwear and slippers were missing. “How can a child’s pants disappear?”
His father, Ahmet, rejected claims the assault was a prank.
“How can this be a joke? It was a murder,” he said.
The case has renewed scrutiny of child labour in Turkey.
MP Suat Özçağdaş said on X that Muhammed “should have been at school” and that the initial suggestion the incident was “joking around” showed systemic failings.
Legal action
Aksoy was initially detained but released on probation. After prosecutors appealed, he was re-arrested and formally taken into custody.
The second suspect remains unnamed.
The investigation continues.
