Children killed in nursery attack

Three children and a teacher have been killed at a nursery in China
12 April 2012

Three children and one teacher have been killed after a knifeman went on a slashing rampage in a nursery in eastern China.

The assailant entered the school in a suburb of Zibo in Shandong province on Tuesday as parents were picking up their children, according to people living nearby.

About 20 children and staff were injured, two of the children seriously, they said.

China has suffered a spate of gory rampage attacks on schools and in public spaces this year, leaving dozens of people dead and scores wounded.

A woman who works in a restaurant opposite the Boshan District Experimental Kindergarten's Jinfengyuan branch said the attacker was a man aged 27 or 28 who had gained entry to the school by posing as a parent.

Police rushed to the kindergarten soon after the attack and officers transported some injured children to hospital before ambulances had time to arrive, said the woman.

"The kindergarten has been sealed off until now. There are still police officers there," she said.

The Zibo killings came just two days after a man in Hebei province in the west went on a rampage at the wheel of his digger, smashing vehicles and buildings and leaving 17 dead.

Other recent mass killings include an attack on a kindergarten in the northern province of Shaanxi in May that left seven children and two adults dead and the wounding of 29 children at a kindergarten in Jiangsu province in April.

The seemingly-unrelated attacks have prompted calls for more attention to diagnosing serious mental illnesses and ignited fears over the toll stress is taking on the nation's emotional health.

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