Four children have now died from the knife attack at a kindergarten in Jiangxi on Thursday. It was the second violent attack at a school in two days, and the third in a month. The Telegraph has the details:
The pair of apparent copycat knifings may have been inspired by an attack which left eight children dead at the end of March in a school in the eastern province of Fujian.
…Xu Xuyuan, a 47-year-old former insurance salesman who was fired from his job in 2001, broke into Taixing’s Central Kindergarten just after nine o’clock on Thursday morning, after the children had completed their morning exercises and had filed into class.
Wielding an eight-inch blade, he powered past an elderly porter before locking himself inside a ground-floor first grade classroom in the school’s south block. Only seven children out of the class of 37 managed to escape unharmed.
…Another 62-year-old woman, who declined to be named, said: “What is wrong with this society that people are killing small kids? I live on this street and I used to see them every day. I nearly had a stroke when I heard what had happened this morning.”
In a bid to calm the rising panic across the country, Chinese authorities censored posts from internet forums and National Security employees hushed residents in Taixing.
The motivation for the latest attack remains unclear, with some speculating that Mr Xu had been enraged by having his house repossessed by the government.
Many commentators sought deeper motives, however, reflecting on the latent anger in Chinese society driven by rising wealth inequalities, unfair treatment and rampant corruption.
See also a Telegraph video report here and a Time Magazine article, “China’s Alarming Spate of School Knifings.“
