School janitor attacks 20 children at Beijing school

Twenty pupils at a Beijing primary school were wounded on Tuesday in an attack that police said had left at least three seriously injured, state news agency Xinhua reported.

The attack took place in a district called Xicheng in the Beijing and the knife-wielding attacker was arrested by the police, state-run People's Daily said in a Twitter post. The injured children have been hospitalised.

The police statement added that the three most seriously wounded pupils were in a stable condition, but their injuries were not thought to be life-threatening.

A film of a meeting between school staff and parents circulated widely on social media, in which parents were told a “school worker” had carried out the attack.

The Xicheng government did not give other details of the attack, but posts on social media said the children suffered knife wounds to the head.

The attack was carried out by a former temporary janitor at the school who was angry at not having passed his probation, according to a former school maintenance worker surnamed Liang.

Several of the pupils were taken to the intensive care unit of the nearby Xuanwu Hospital following the attack.

Some parents claimed on social media that around 20 children had been injured, although there were conflicting reports about whether a hammer or a knife had been used in the attack.

“The details are still not clear,” wrote one parent on WeChat. “They were all younger students and were stabbed by an adult.”

The agency also noted that violent crime is rare in China but there has been a series of knife and axe attacks in recent years, many targeting children.

In January 2017, a man in southern China stabbed 12 children with a vegetable knife to extract revenge for his life not going as he wanted and a dispute with a neighbor. That man was executed this week.