efforts to secure the safety of children on their way to and home from school.

He said: "It was an extremely harrowing incident in which many small children were victimised, and I feel strong resentment .. I will take all possible measures to protect the safety of children."

US President Donald Trump, who was in the country during an official visit to Japan with first lady Melania, offered his condolences to the victims.

Speaking shortly before he and his wife left, he said: "On behalf of the first lady and myself I want to take a moment to send our prayers and sympathy to the victims of the stabbing attack this morning in Tokyo.

"All Americans stand with the people of Japan and grieve for the victims and their families."

Mr Trump madethe comments whilst on a tour of a Japanese navy ship at the Yokosuka naval base located south of Tokyo.

Image: Emergency services were alerted to the mass stabbing

Violent crime is extremely rare in Japan and the country has one of the lowest rates of crime in the developed world.

Occasional high-profile incidents have shocked the nation, with more than a dozen people injured in a 2010 stabbing spree on a school bus and a commuter bus in a Tokyo suburb.

Two years earlier, a 28-year-old man drove a truck into a crowded pedestrian crossing in Tokyo, killing three people, before before stabbing four others to death.