In China’s southern Guangdong province, a kindergarten stabbing has claimed the lives of six individuals, three of whom were children.
A 25-year-old male with the last name Wu was reportedly detained by police in Lianjiang town.
Two parents and a teacher make up the remaining victims, according to AFP, which quoted a local official.
Additionally, one person gets hurt.
Police have described this as an instance of “intentional assault” but have not provided any other information regarding a potential motive.
On Monday at 7:40 local time (23:40 Sunday GMT), the attack took place as parents were dropping off their kids at summer camp. A man was taken into custody about 8:00.
The area around the kindergarten has been cordoned off, a store owner who works nearby informed the BBC.
Outrage and astonishment were triggered by the footage of the incident as they proliferated on Chinese social media.
The stabbings also followed an unsettlingly predictable pattern. Although China forbids the use of firearms, there have been a number of knife assaults there in recent years. In one occasion, the assailant also injured a class of 50 children with chemical spray.
Since 2010, the BBC has recorded at least 17 knife incidents in educational institutions such colleges and universities. There have been ten of those between 2018 and 2023.
Three people were killed and six others were injured when a knife-wielding attacker invaded a kindergarten in the southern Jiangxi province in August of last year.
Two children lost their lives and 16 others were hurt in a mass stabbing that occurred in Beiliu City, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in April 2021.
In a knife attack at a kindergarten in Chongqing, southwest China, in October 2018, 14 kids were hurt.
The culprits in the majority of these incidents are male and have shown animosity toward society. Similar trends have been observed in mass murders in other nations, including the US and Japan. However, analysts speculate that there may be some other factors at play in China’s apparent rise in mass stabbings.