Attacker sneaks into school, stabs 12 children in China

BEIJING – A vengeful man stabbed 12 children with a kitchen knife at a kindergarten in southern China on Wednesday, seriously injuring five of them, local authorities said.

The attacker “sneaked into” the school in the afternoon and stabbed children in his child’s class while the students were eating, according to a statement from the Pingxiang city government’s information office, citing police. Two teachers fought back with plastic chairs, and police called to the school in the largely rural region of Guangxi managed to detain him.

None of the children has life-threatening injuries, the statement said.

The government said the suspect was Qin Peng’an, a man from Nanshan village that is under the jurisdiction of Pingxiang city. It said Qin told staff at Xiaocongzai Kindergarten that he was picking up his child as an excuse to get into the school.

It said an initial police investigation found that Qin felt bullied in the village so he stabbed the children out of anger and revenge.

In recent years, China has had several incidents of attackers entering schools and stabbing children, mostly carried out by people with vendettas against society.