Police officers in southeast China’s Jiangxi province arrested a 48-year-old man on Wednesday on suspicion of perpetrating a fatal stabbing at a private kindergarten in Jiangxi’s Anfu county that day that killed three people and injured six others, China’s state-run Global Times reported.
The newspaper cited a report from China’s state media agency Xinhua confirming that authorities had taken a suspect into custody in connection with the stabbing of kindergarten children. The suspect was identified as Liu by police officers.
A man, now believed to be Liu, “stormed” a private kindergarten in Anfu county at approximately 10: 00 am local time on August 3 and stabbed both teachers and toddlers, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Authorities have not yet made public names and ages of victims in the stabbing incident.
“[ “It is possible to confirm that at least one child suffered injuries in the attack,” reported the Global Times on August 3.
“In addition to this, Sina Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) shows that an assailant used the knife to stab several kindergarten children, most of whom were under six years old, while some are still being treated in hospital,” the state-run newspaper reported.
“An AFP video shows a cop carrying a small child to the ambulance in his arms,” AFP reported.
“Massive violent crime in China is uncommon, as the country strictly bans the ownership of firearms. However, there have been several mass stabbings over recent years,” the news agency reported on Wednesday.
“Battles against kindergarten students and teachers have been reported in the United States. These attacks were reportedly carried out by individuals who wished to exact revenge or express their grievances with coworkers.” AFP stated.
An approximately 50-year-old attacker wielding a knife stabbed teachers and students at a primary school in Cangwu County in southern China’s Guangxi region in June 2020.
The local government said in a statement at the time that “37 students suffered mild injuries and two adults suffered more severe injuries. They were all taken to hospital and their lives have not been endangered
Authorities later identified the perpetrator as the school’s security guard and sentenced him to death for intention to commit homicide, though all of his stabbing victims survived the incident.
“A knife-wielding man killed two people and wounded two others at a primary school in central Hunan province in April last year [2019],” AFP recalled in June 2020 when reporting on the Cangwu County school stabbing.
“In April 2018, a man killed nine middle school students as they were returning home, in one of the deadliest knife attacks seen in China in recent years,” the news agency further recalled.
Bad weather forces Biden’s early departure