(BEILIU CITY, China) — A knife-wielding man broke into a school in southern China on Wednesday and injured at least 18 people, including 16 children, according to local authorities. At least two of the children were seriously injured.
A man with the last name of Zeng, 24, began the attack around 2 p.m. at the private Jianle kindergarten in Xinfeng, a town of 50,000 in Beiliu City in the southern province of Guangxi. Both teachers and students appeared to have been targeted during nap time, according to local media reports.
Videos posted to Chinese social media sites showed graphic footage of bloodied children crying, with some lying unresponsive on the floor of a covered playground. Videos also showed a man, presumably Zeng, being forcibly detained by police.
Authorities didn’t confirm a motive for the attack, but Hong Kong news outlets, including Oriental Daily and Apple Daily, reported that the suspect was going through a divorce and his wife worked at the school.
Recently, China has experienced a number of mass-stabbing attacks at schools and daycare centers, mostly in smaller cities where mental health care is harder to come by.
Last June, a school security guard stabbed 39 children and staff at a kindergarten in the same province of Guangxi. And in December, on the other end of the country in Kaiyuan, Liaoning Province, an attacker randomly targeted pedestrians outside of a school, killing seven and injuring seven more. The school happened to be closed that day.
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