AT LEAST eight people have been killed and 17 others injured after a man went on a stabbing spree at a school in China.
It comes just days after the deadliest mass attack in the country in a decade killed 35 people.
Police respond following a stabbing attack at vocational college in Yixing, Wuxi city, Jiangsu, ChinaReuters
Police apprehend a person following a stabbing attack at vocational college in Yixing, Wuxi city, JiangsuReuters
Cops said that a 21-year-old man is believed to have carried out the attack in Yixing City in China’s Jiangsu province.
He is said to be a former student at the Wuxi Vocational College of Arts and Technology where the attack occurred.
Police said the suspect – identified only by his family name, Xu – graduated from school earlier this year and was angry about not receiving his graduation certificate.
The Yixing Public Security Bureau added that the student was also said to be unhappy with his internship pay.
He was soon arrested after which he confessed to the killings.
Last week, 35 people were tragically killed and 43 were injured after a driver fuming about his divorce rammed his SUV into a crowd.
Initial police reports said the sick man circled the sports complex several times and drove down exercisers after he became dissatisfied with the division of property in a divorce.
The 62-year-old driver, with the surname Fan, then stabbed himself in the neck in an act of self-harm and fell into a coma after the attack, Global Times reports.
Video published on Chinese social media shows bodies lying on the ground in pools of blood and lost shoes lying across the asphalt.
Later, police and emergency services could be seen next to the car shining a torch into the driver’s seat after it was pulled over.
Those who dodged the speeding motor bravely tended to the people who had been hit – but 27 ambulances were still needed to treat the injured.
Videos were posted online but were quickly censored by Chinese authorities.
A string of violent attacks in recent months have grappled the nation.
There have been at least 17 knife assaults in schools, colleges, and universities since 2010 – 10 of which occurred between 2018 and 2023.
The bulk of these incidents have discovered attackers to be men with a grievance against society, while experts have suggested that there may be other causes contributing to the seeming upsurge in mass stabbings in China.
In May, two people were killed and 10 others were seriously injured after a woman launched a brutal knife attack at a primary school in China.
The attacker was reportedly carrying a fruit knife when she stormed into the Wufang Mingde Elementary School in Guixi city.
Parents at the school expressed astonishment and terror after learning that the school had been attacked.
One dad told the BBC: “Of course, we are scared. It’s not just the children; even we adults are very frightened.”
He also stated that the teachers handled the tragedy admirably, as they quickly posted images of the children in the parent group, assuring them that they were safe and that the doors had been locked.
Another parent, who chose to remain anonymous, added: “I received the news at noon, and I was very shocked.
“My child is in the fifth grade and very young and has safely arrived home, but the school has not informed us of anything and has kept everything hidden.
“I am going back to comfort my child and to find out what exactly happened.”
It follows a worrying pattern that has emerged in recent months around China, with a rash of knife assaults killing and injuring numerous civilians, including one at a hospital.
Earlier this month, a man stabbed two people to death and injured 21 others at a hospital in the southern province of Yunnan.
Last year in August, a man with a history of mental illness killed two people and injured seven others with a knife in a residential district in Yunnan.
Six other people, including three children, were killed in a horrifying kindergarten stabbing in Guangdong just one month before that.