Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 2:00 pm Post subject: Nursery school knife attack in China
'Four children dead' in stabbing rampage at Chinese kindergarten
Jane Macartney,
China Correspondent
timesonline.co.uk
Four young children are reported to have died after a former insurance salesman slashed and stabbed his way through a kindergarten in southern China, in the second such attack in as many days. The well-regarded Caijing magazine said that four children were killed in this morning's s attack. Officials declined to comment.
The man stabbed 28 children as well as a teacher, a security guard and a school volunteer who tried to protect the terrified four-year-olds. Coming less than 24 hours after a mentally ill former teacher hacked at 15 pupils and a teacher in a southern China primary school, the attack has sparked nationwide outrage and heartsearching about why children have become targets.
Officials said that Xu Yuyuan, 47, broke into a classroom at the nursery school in Taixing city in southeastern Jiangsu province at about 9.40am today and attacked the children with a 20cm (9in) knife. A photograph from the scene showed blood spattered across the school steps — presumably as the wounded were rushed to hospital.
A staff member at the Taixing No 1 People’s Hospital said that some of the wounded were being treated there. He said: “The injured have been sent here one after another. The doctors are now trying their best to save them.” Five of the children were in critical condition in hospital in Jiangsu province, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the propaganda department in Taixing city. However, officials told state media that no deaths had been reported and the condition of the most badly hurt was stabilising. Police have arrested Mr Xu, who was described as unemployed after having worked for a local insurance company until 2001.
Yesterday a 33-year-old man with a history of mental illness rushed into classrooms at the Leizhou primary school in southern Guangdong province, brandishing a knife about a foot long. He injured 16 children and a teacher, stabbing them in the back arms and head. None of the victims was reported to be in serious condition. The man then made his way to a top-floor balcony, from which threatened to throw himself off, before being arrested.
Several schools across China have been the subject of similar attacks in recent yeas, provoking anger from parents and the media. Hours before the primary school attack, state media announced the execution of a former medical worker who stabbed to death eight children on March 23 as they waited for the gates to open for morning classes at their school in eastern Fujian province. Zheng Minsheng, 41, told the court that he carried had out the attack in a fit of rage after splitting from his girlfriend.
Across the internet, the only forum for popular discussion in China, chatrooms were filled with anger at the latest attack. One comment read: “Governments, let me ask, what crime has the next generation committed and why can criminals bring these tragedies to innocent children? I appeal to the government to save our children.” Another wrote: “Our government should pause to consider seriously just what the problem is here.”
One expert attributed the string of attacks on schoolchildren to increasing social problems. Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said that the choice of schoolchildren as victims could be a form of copycat phenomenon. This sort of violent attack often happened in clusters, he said.
“It’s like suicide, which is another type of mental health problem that can spread in a community. Normally, with these kind of violent events we hope the media won’t blow them up too much. Because that tends to make it spread.”
Absolutely awful and for other knife attacks on students just so recently? How terrible. I can only imagine a lot of parents not wanting to let their children go to school.
Five children hurt in third China school attack in three days
timesonline.co.uk
Five young Chinese children were injured when a farmer burst into their kindergarten and battered them with a hammer before burning himself to death, stunning a nation reeling in shock after two school attacks in just 24 hours.
The man used his motorcycle to ram through a gate to the school in Weifang in eastern Shandong province in the third copycat assault on a school in as many days. The farmer, Wang Yonglai, struck at a teacher who tried to block his way and then wielded his hammer against kindergarten toddlers, wounding five.
He grabbed two children from the pre-school class at the Shangzhuang Primary School before dousing his body in gasoline and setting himself alight. Teachers had time to pull the two children to safety. None of the children had sustained life-threatening injuries.
China is already in shock after a string of attacks on schoolchildren that have provoked panic among parents and a string of emergency security measures by schools nationwide. In Beijing’s Xicheng District, all kindergartens, primary and middle schools have installed emergency two-metre-high metal barriers outside schools. Guards have been equipped with long-handled metal restraint poles with a hook on the end.
In southern Nanjing’s Drum Tower district, school security guards were being equipped with police truncheons and pepper spray. In central Changsha, parents had created volunteer teams to escort children to and from school. In eastern Jinan, not far from where the latest attack took place, police posts were being built on primary and middle school campuses.
A day earlier a 47-year-old unemployed man rampaged through a kindergarten in southeastern Jiangsu province slashing at children with a knife, wounding 29 children aged 4 or 5 along with two teachers and a caretaker. Five of the children were in serious condition with two still in intensive care. Xu Yuyuan was finally subdued by neighbours who attacked him with a fire extinguisher and a mop. He told police he carried out the attack in anger after a series of business and personal humiliations. Mr Xu, described as being quite well off, said it was his “revenge on society”. On Wednesday, a 33-year-old man with a history of mental illness rushed through classrooms in a primary school in southern Guangdong province, hacking at random with a foot-long knife and wounding 16 pupils and a teacher.
The Education Ministry issued a directive calling on schools to boost security. Such directives are nothing new. They were initially ordered in 2004 after an attack that left nine students dead at a school in Beijing.
The China Daily emphasised the need to prevent attacks in the first place. “It can be easy to put killers on trial and execute them but it is far more difficult to find out the deep-seated causes behind such horrifying acts. Our efforts should be focused on preventing these from happening. We should find out what propelled them to such extremes. What problems do they have? Could anyone have helped, especially the authorities?”
The wave of copycat school attacks coincides with poor care for the mentally unstable and growing feelings of social injustice in a country undergoing rapid transformation after 30 years of market-oriented economic reforms.
Seven Kids Killed In China 'Copy Cat' Attack
May 12, 2010
Peter Sharp, Asia correspondent
Sky News
Seven children and two adults have been stabbed to death and 11 more injured in an attack at a nursery in central China. The killer was named in local media as Wu Huanmin, who returned home after the attack and committed suicide. The bloodshed happened in the city of Hanzhong in Shaanxi province.
It is the fifth violent 'copy cat' attack on schoolchildren in the last two months and happened despite unprecedented security outside schools across China. In Beijing, 7,000 extra police have been deployed to boost existing security outside school buildings. Police in the capital say they have prevented seven attacks in recent weeks. Soldiers have been training children in self defence and some parents are accompanying their children to and from classes.
Beijing psychologist Zhang Hong said vulnerable groups of children are easy targets for those who want to get back at society. "By attacking children these men - who are themselves weak- achieve their goal in the shortest space of time."
The attacks have been carried out at different locations across China. In the eastern province of Shandong, a farmer attacked children with a hammer, injuring five, before fatally setting himself on fire on April 30. The day before, a disgruntled jobless man injured 29 children and three adults with a knife used to slaughter pigs in an attack at a kindergarten in the eastern city of Taixing. Earlier that same week, a 33-year-old teacher injured 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack at a primary school in southern China's Guangdong province.
And in March, a former doctor enraged by a split with his girlfriend stabbed eight children to death and injured five others in Fujian province. He was executed last month.
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