A man armed with a knife has killed six people in a stabbing attack at a kindergarten in southeastern China.
A 25-year-old man has reportedly been detained by police following the incident at a nursery in Guangdong province on Monday, which left another person injured, police said.
Some media reported that both adults and children were among the victims.
The attack took place around 7.40am local time on Monday (12.40am in the UK).
A news outlet, Dafeng News, cited an unidentified witness as saying the attacker’s child had been struck earlier by a car belonging to one of the people who was killed at the school.
It said one of the people killed was a teacher at the kindergarten.
Employees who answered at the Lianjiang police headquarters declined to give more details.
While violent crime is rare in China due to strict gun laws and tight policing, there have been several incidents of stabbings at nursery schools in the past few years.
In August last year, three people were killed and six wounded in a stabbing at a kindergarten in Jiangxi province.
In 2021, a man killed two children and wounded 16 at a kindergarten in the southwestern region of Guangxi.
The latest news sparked emotive debate on social media platform Weibo.
By 1.50pm local time, it was the top trending discussion, with 290 million views.
Some social media users called for the suspect to face capital punishment.
“It’s outrageous to do this to children who have no power at all. How many families will be destroyed by this ... I support the death penalty,” wrote one Weibo user.
Another user questioned security measures in place at schools following the attacks seen in recent years, writing: “Why do such cases still continue to emerge?”
