China children 'hacked to death' in new school attack

[sha123]

At least six children have been hacked to death in north-western China in the latest in a series of violent attacks on schools, state media report.

Some 20 others were injured after the attack in Hanzhong city in Shaanxi province, Xinhua news agency reported.

The children were all thought to be under the age of six, and one teacher is also said to have been killed.

It is the second fatal school attack in recent weeks. Several other attacks have resulted in dozens of injuries.

In March, a man stabbed to death eight pupils at a school in Fujian province. He was executed soon afterwards.

In the space of a week in late April, three more attacks in different parts of China left dozens of children injured.

The BBC's Damian Grammaticas in Beijing says many parents now fear copycat attacks.

Pitchfork defence

Hanzhong city officials said that the man who carried out the killings had killed himself afterwards.
Earlier, Xinhua reported that seven children had died, but this was later corrected with the teacher's death.

Last month, the education ministry ordered all schools to upgrade their security facilities, teach students about safety and ensure that young children were escorted home.

Some local police authorities have distributed steel pitchforks and pepper spray to security guards in schools.

But correspondents say such measures are expensive and their effectiveness is unproven.

China traditionally has had a comparatively low rate of violent crime, but this is no longer the case.

Experts quoted in Western media have suggested that the school attacks are a form of revenge on society by individuals with no outlet for their anger.

Some Chinese commentators have alluded to the growing gap between rich and poor, and the rapid pace of economic development and social upheaval as possible factors leading to outbreaks of violence.

But reports in official media have generally played down any wider causes for the school attacks, portraying them as isolated incidents perpetrated by disturbed individuals.

BBC News - China children 'hacked to death' in new school attack

 

[notsuperstitious]

7 kindergarteners, teacher hacked to death in China - latimes.com

Despite stepped-up security at China's schools, another kindergarten was the scene of a gruesome rampage Wednesday when a middle-aged man armed with a kitchen knife hacked to death seven children and a teacher.

The latest in a troubling string of attacks on children took place at 8 a.m. Wednesday at the Linchang Village Kindergarten in the town of Hanzhong, about 100 miles southwest Xian, famous for its terra-cotta warriors. The killer was identified by the official New China News Agency as 48-year-old Wu Huanmin. He reportedly escaped from the scene and killed himself at home.

Some reports said he was the landlord for the school, which provided instruction and childcare for children as young as 3. Besides the pupils killed, 20 were reported injured.


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A posting on the Tianya news forum said that there might have been more than one person involved and that the criminals got into the kindergarten by driving a van into the main gate. The report could not be verified.

News coverage was sketchy, with few Chinese-language websites reporting on the attack and the report from New China posted only in English. Chinese authorities have avoiding publicizing such attacks on the grounds that they could inspire copycat killers.

Wednesday's attack is the deadliest since March 23, when an unemployed doctor stabbed to death eight children in Nanping City, Fujian province. Since then, there have been half a dozen similar rampages around China, almost all of them involving middle-aged men who went after young children with knives, cleavers, axes and in one case, gasoline.

"The atmosphere is very bad these days. People are really terrified," said a doctor who gave her name as Yu from the Shankou Village Medical Clinic, which is near the school that was attacked. She said she was leaving early to pick up her 8-year-old grandson from school.

Around the country, police and paramilitary forces have been assigned to watch schools at key hours when children are coming and going, and security guards have been trained to use batons to defend schools against knife-wielding attackers. In Nanzheng county, where Liulang village is located, a conference on school security took place May 5, exactly a week before the attack.

"It is mission impossible to prevent these attacks in the short term. More and more people have been inspired to copy what the others have done, and it is very difficult to stop them," said Liu Shanying, a political scientist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

China has strict controls on guns, but large knives and cleavers are found in every Chinese kitchen.

Liu said it is no coincidence that all the attackers have been middle-aged men living in small towns.

"When you look at attacks in the United States, it is usually about social isolation or pressure at school, but these are men in their 40s, who feel they didn't enjoy the fruits of economic development and have passed the golden period where they can improve their lives," he said.

"They feel they have no other way to express their grievances. They go after the most defenseless segment of the population, young children, in order to kill as many people as possible."

 

[notsuperstitious]

Maybe some chinese can throw more light on how they preceive these issues.

Can't imagine what the parents go thought.

 

[below_freezing]

this is not a coincidence. more knife attacks have occured in these past 2 months than have occured in the last 2 years. the underlying root problems must be solved. 2 years ago there were also disgruntled middle aged men, but they didn't attack children.

 

[notsuperstitious]

this is not a coincidence. more knife attacks have occured in these past 2 months than have occured in the last 2 years. the underlying root problems must be solved. 2 years ago there were also disgruntled middle aged men, but they didn't attack children.

Hmmm... but what is driving them to attack children?

Another interesting aspect is - the US gun lobby is going to use these attacks to 'prove' that attacks happen not because people have access to guns.

 

[below_freezing]

and the US gun lobby is irrelevant outside the US. i don't care if everyone in the US drives a tank to work.