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China kindergarten stabbing: Woman slashes at least 14 children

Posted at 4:55 AM, Oct 26, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-26 04:55:48-04

A woman wielding a kitchen knife has attacked at least 14 children at a kindergarten in Chongqing in central China, local police said Friday.

Chongqing City Banan District police said the children were slashed as they walked back to class after their morning exercises at Yudong New Century Kindergarten about 9.30 a.m. local time.

Videos circulating on Chinese social media showed small children bleeding from severe cuts to their faces at the entrance of the kindergarten as stunned adults looked on.

School security guards and staff managed to restrain the 39-year-old attacker. Video from the scene appeared to show angry onlookers attempting to hit and kick the woman after she was detained.

Chongqing resident Xia Yang told CNN large crowds gathered at the scene following the incident, and that the attack had shocked residents of the city, a metropolis of some 30 million people.

An unknown number of students were taken to hospital following the incident, according to the statement, while the female attacker was taken into custody.

A video from a hospital in Chongqing showed adults wailing in grief as children covered in blood are rushed from ambulances into the building. In another video, a child with his head in bandages is rushed past on a hospital bed, as crowds look on.

Police said investigations are continuing.

Friday’s incident isn’t the first time children in China have been hurt at school by people wielding knives. Nine students were killed at a middle school in Shaanxi province in April by a 28-year-old man who was later sentenced to death.

According to state media Xinhua, the killer had wanted to “get revenge on his former classmates who had teased him” and had bought the knives online.

In 2017, 11 students were injured after a man climbed over the wall of a kindergarten with a knife and began attacking them.