Six people were killed in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southern China’s Guangdong province on Monday.
The attack happened around 7:40 a.m., according to a source. declare from local police in Lianjiang, a city of less than 2 million people about 300 miles west of Shenzhen. A 25-year-old local man surnamed Wu was arrested. No potential motive has been given.
A statement from police did not provide information about the victims, but state media reported that residents saw a child and two adults lying on the ground near the entrance to the preschool. In addition to the six dead, one person was injured.
Knife attacks are not uncommon in China, where guns are tightly controlled and shootings are extremely rare. And many stabbings have targeted schools. Last August, an attacker was killed Three people and six others were injured at a kindergarten in southeastern China’s Jiangxi province. In 2021, two people die and 16 people were injured in an attack at a kindergarten in the southwestern region of Guangxi.
The government has called on schools to increase security, especially after a series of school attacks in 2010 killing more than two dozen people, including 19 children. Attackers in such cases are often sentenced to harshness, sometimes the death penalty.
Authorities often attribute the attacks to people with “grudges” or people seeking “social revenge.” Experts and some officials suggested that attackers were acting out of frustration with China’s rapidly changing society and social stressors such as unemployment. But mental health resources in China are still sparse and social safety nets thin.
The government also tightly controls information about such attacks, as well as other tragedies. Victims’ names are often not made public, and relatives are sometimes prevented from speaking out.
