Man stabs 28 children in China kindergarten attack

Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010

Twenty-eight children and three adults have been injured by a man with a knife at a kindergarten in eastern China, the third such attack in a month.

Officials said five of the injured were in a critical condition in hospital after the incident in Jiangsu province.

It follows a knife attack on Wednesday in the south of the country, in which 16 pupils and one teacher were injured.

Earlier that day, a doctor convicted of stabbing eight children to death last month in Fujian province was executed.

The alleged assailant in Thursday's attack at the Zhongxin kindergarten, in the city of Taixing, Jiangsu province was detained afterwards.

Police said he was a 47-year-old unemployed local man and had been carrying a 20cm (8 inch) knife, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"The gate-keeper, teachers, and students were attacked. The injured are receiving treatment in hospital. We don't have any reports of deaths yet," an official with the Taixing city government told AFP news agency.

Grudges

The injured were attacked as lessons got underway this morning, reports the BBC's Shanghai correspondent Chris Hogg.

Most of the children were four year olds from the same class.

ANALYSIS By Chris Hogg, BBC News, Shanghai The spate of attacks on schools is unsettling for the Chinese. This kind of violent crime is usually quite rare here. Already there are calls to step up security in and around educational institutions. But that would be expensive. In reality there is probably little that can be done to prevent this kind of incident taking place.

"The injured have been sent here one after another," an unnamed official at the Taixing No 1 People's hospital told the Associated Press news agency.

"The doctors are now trying their best to save them."

China has witnessed several school attacks in recent years, most blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness.

Since a spate of attacks in 2004, many schools have employed professional guards.

Our correspondent says the attacks on schools are unsettling in a country where such violent attack are rare, and have led for calls for increased security at schools.