Update | Four schoolboys killed in shocking knife attack in southwestern China

Police in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi are hunting a 56-year-old man whom they suspect of murdering four schoolboys in a savage knife attack early Friday morning and making off with the headless body of one victim in a tricycle.  

The four boys, aged between 8 and 11, were on their way to school in the town of Pingshan near the border with Vietnam, when the assailant set upon them, Xinhua reported.

Three of the boys died at the scene and one died later in a hospital. 

The police department in Lingshan county said they were looking for 56-year-old local man Shi Jianting as a major suspect in the shocking crime, and offered a reward of 20,000 yuan (HK$25,200) for tips on Shi's whereabouts in a statement on Friday morning.  

Police later discovered the suspect's tricycle, abandoned by the side of a hill, with the headless body of a young boy on it, state broadcaster China Central Television reported. They believed it belonged to one of the victims, said CCTV.

The manhunt continues in nearby villages as of Friday afternoon. More than 300 people along with sniffer dogs were searching mountainous woodland for the suspected assailant, in an area about seven kilometres from the site of the stabbings.