Beijing, China | AFP | A knife-wielding man with a grudge killed nine middle school children and injured at least 10 others as they returned home in northern China on Friday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest such rampages in the country in recent years. The 28-year-old suspect was detained and the injured children were receiving hospital treatment, the Mizhi County public security bureau in Shaanxi province said on its official social media account. The incident took place at around 6:10 pm local time, the department said, without providing further details.The ages of the children were not given, but middle schoolers are usually between 12 and 15 years old in China. Their exact ages have not been given, but reports suggest they may be middle school children, which would make them aged 12 to 15, reported BBC. The deadly rampage is the latest in a string of knife attacks against school children to happen in the country in recent years. In February, a knife-wielding man with a personal grudge killed a woman and injured 12 others in a busy Beijing shopping mall -- a rare act of violence in the heavily policed capital. In July, a man armed with a kitchen knife killed two people and wounded nine others in a supermarket in the southern city of Shenzhen.Attacks have also targeted schoolchildren in the past. Previous knife attacks: A man stabbed and wounded 11 children with a kitchen knife at a kindergarten in China's southern Guangxi Zhuang region in January 2017. In January 2017, a man armed with a kitchen knife stabbed and wounded 11 children at a kindergarten in China’s southern Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.In February 2016, a knife-wielding assailant wounded 10 children in Haikou, in the southern island province of Hainan, before committing suicide.
A man with a knife kills seven children and wounds twelve more in Mizhi, Shaanxi, China.