XI’AN – A male suspect has been detained after seven students died and another 12 were injured in a knife attack near a middle school in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, according to state media.
The knife-wielding man attacked the students near Mizhi County Number Three secondary school in Shaanxi province as they were heading home on Friday, the Xinhua reported.
Chinese police have given his surname as Zhao and say he is a 28-year-old former student of the school. Their preliminary assessment is that he was motivated to take revenge because he was bullied in his third year (where students are typically aged 13-14).
The injured are receiving treatment in hospital.
Their exact ages have not been given but reports suggest they may be middle school children, which would make them aged 12 to 15.
Further investigation is ongoing.
A spate of unconnected stabbings at Chinese schools between 2010 and 2012 left at least 25 dead and more than 100 injured.
The country executed three men in March 2015 after they were found guilty of a savage knife attack at Kunming station, where 29 people were hacked to death and more than 100 others wounded. The trio had been convicted of murder and terrorism offences.
In July 2017, two people died and nine were injured by a knife-wielding man at a Wal-Mart supermarket in the southern city of Shenzhen.
In February, a knifeman killed a woman and injured 12 others at a Beijing shopping centre.
