Eight people were killed and 17 others injured in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China on Saturday. The suspect – a former student – has been arrested, police said.
The attack took place in the evening at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing city, Jiangsu province, police in Yixing said in a statement, confirming the toll.
This was the second incident of deadly violence in China within days.
Earlier this week it involved a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and injured more than 40 others when he drove his small SUV into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai. The suspect was found in the car with a knife and, according to police, he had injuries to his neck that were suspected to be self-harm.
Police said the suspect in the knife attack was a 21-year-old former student of the school who was due to graduate this year but failed his exams.
“He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” police said, adding that the suspect had confessed.
In Yixing, police said emergency services had been fully mobilized to treat the injured and provide aftercare to those affected by the attack.
Violent knife crime is not uncommon in China, where firearms are tightly controlled, but attacks with such a high death toll are relatively rare.
There has been a spate of other attacks in recent months.
In October, a man in Shanghai killed three people and injured 15 others in a knife attack at a supermarket.
And the month before, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
