A man wielding a knife attacked students
Friday at a school in central China, leaving 22 children and one adult
injured, according to state-run media reports.
The attack
occurred at the gate of an elementary school in the village of
Chengping, in Henan Province. Police arrested the attacker, who they
identified as local resident Min Yingjun, 36.
Children as
young as six were among those hospitalized after the attack, suffering
injuries including slashes to the ears and head.
An
official at Guangshan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, the local
facility, told CBS News at least two students had been transferred to
the larger city of Wuhan, not far from Chengping, for treatment. The
editor of the local newspaper which first reported the story said none
of the children had injuries severe enough to threaten their lives.
The
attack marks the latest in a series of violent assaults at elementary
schools in China. In 2010, a total of 18 children were killed in four
separate attacks. On March 23 of that year, Zheng Minsheng attacked
children at an elementary school in Fujian Province, killing eight.
One
month later, just a few hours after Zheng Minsheng was executed for his
crime, another man, Chen Kanbing wounded 16 students and a teacher in a
knife attack at another primary school in Fujian. The following month,
on May 12, a man named Wu Huangming killed seven children and two adults
with a meat cleaver at a kindergarten in Shaanxi Province. That attack
was followed by an August 4 assault by Fang Jiantang, who killed three
children and one teacher with a knife at a kindergarten in Shandong
Province.
In 2011, a young girl and three adults were
killed with an axe at an elementary school in Henan Province by a
30-year-old man named Wang Hongbin, and eight children were hurt in
Shanghai after an employee at a child care center attacked them with a
box cutter.
Some Chinese bloggers have blamed the lack of
freedom of expression for the attacks, suggesting people frustrated by
their own circumstances but lacking the means to seek justice or voice
their concerns with the all-powerful communist government, lash out
instead at the least powerful members of society.
China's
lack of mental health care facilities may also be partly to blame for
the attacks. There are almost no mental health care facilities in rural
communities, which have experienced dramatic changes over the last
several years as China's economy has grown.
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