China suffers eighth child stabbing attack in a month

China has suffered two more attacks against young children, in an unprecedented spate of violence that has seen eight incidents in just over a month.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Published: 11:40AM BST 11 May 2010

On Monday morning, a man armed with a knife and a hatchet killed two people and wounded another seven, including two 18-month-old boys, in the north-western province of Shaanxi.

On Tuesday, a villager in a remote part of Guangxi province hacked an old woman to death with a machete before attacking another grandmother and her granddaughter.

Since the end of March, when a mentally unstable former teacher killed eight children at a primary school, China has suffered a series of copycat knife attacks.

Several kindergartens have been broken into by male attackers, who have hacked at children with knives and hammers, sending Chinese parents across the country into panic.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Beijing Public Security bureau said police had prevented seven attempted copycat attacks on schools since the March incident. Schools across the country have been staffed with extra security and given pepper spray and restraining poles to use against assailants.

Last week, the city of Chongqing ordered close to 6,000 extra "campus" police to bolster the defences at kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools.

The two latest attacks both occurred in the countryside and appear to be motivated by personal disputes. In Shaanxi, the alleged attacker, 35-year-old Song Lirong, went on a killing spree in Songjiapo village after an argument with his wife, according to Xinhua, the government news agency.

Believing his neighbours had helped fuel the quarrel, Song visited six nearby homes with a kitchen knife and axe early on Monday morning.

According to Huashang, a local website, Song arrived at the home of Gao Aiqin, a 54-year-old woman, at seven o'clock in the morning while she was cooking. "He was outside calling my name," she said. When she emerged from her house, she saw him holding an axe, which he used to hit her on the head. With blood streaming down her face, she "quickly went back inside, bolting the door. Eventually he went away".

His next victim was 22-year-old Gong Zhilan, who was holding a young baby and cooking with her mother-in-law, Zhang Fengmei. Both were hit with the axe, but the baby was unharmed.

Jia Aihua, a 59-year-old storekeeper, was killed by Song, as was one of her customers, a woman named as Zhang Chufang. Mrs Jia's three-year-old granddaughter was injured as was Mrs Zhang's son. Song also allegedly stole cash from Mrs Jia's house and stole a motorbike to make his escape after hacking at other villagers.

Songjiapo has just 500 residents and most of its men have migrated to find work in China's cities. The villagers said Mr Song was bad-tempered and had been punished by the police for previous attacks.

"He is an animal," said Song Rongze, Mrs Jia's son, to Huashang. "He lost his mind and was only trying to attack women and children. Most of the men in the village are elderly and no one could stop him."

Meanwhile in Guangxi, Yang Qingming, 37, was said to have "been in a trance" in recent days and to have entertained paranoid illusions that someone was trying to kill him. After he killed his three victims and injured one other six-year-old girl, a mob stoned him to death.

On Saturday, a man stabbed to death eight people, including his wife, elderly mother and young daughter in a village in the south-eastern province of Jiangxi, while on the same day, another two people were killed and three injured in a stabbing spree in Hong Kong.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7710196/China-suffers-eighth-child-stabbing-attack-in-a-month.html