Eight children killed in knife attack at Chinese primary school
- Two other pupils wounded in attack in Hubei province
- Man, 40, is detained after incident on first day of new school year
A 40-year-old man was detained after eight children were stabbed to death in a knife attack at a primary school in central China on Monday, local authorities said.
Two other children were being treated for injuries following the incident at Chaotangpo Primary School in the town of Baiyangping, in Hubei province, on the first day of the new academic year.
The suspect, who police said was a local man surnamed Yu, was found by officers at the scene.
A spokeswoman for Enshi Central Hospital said wounded pupils were being treated there, while the local government said it was offering counselling.
The Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported that Yu had been given an early release from prison last year after serving a sentence for attempted murder. A man from the same village as Yu said the conviction had been for an incident in which Yu gouged out his former girlfriend’s eye.
“After he returned home last year, he displayed some mental problems,” the man, whose name was not given, was quoted as saying.
Knife attacks on schoolchildren are a regular occurrence in mainland China, with the perpetrators often saying they are motivated by a desire to take revenge on society.
Earlier this year, two pupils were killed in an attack at a school in Baijiaping in Hunan province, and in January a maintenance man in Beijing was detained over a hammer attack in which 20 pupils were wounded.
In April last year, nine were killed and more than a dozen wounded outside a middle school in northwestern Shaanxi province by an attacker who allegedly was a former pupil seeking revenge for having been bullied.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
