20 Pupils wounded in school janitor attack in China

Twenty pupils were wounded on Tuesday in school janitor's attack at a Beijing primary school.

Iran Press/ Asia: Chinese Police detained the suspected attacker but have not announced the motive behind the attack, or the details of how it was carried out.

The police statement added that the three most seriously wounded pupils were in a stable condition and their injuries aren't life-threatening, according to Xinhua news agency.

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.

There are 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.”

But another parent said: “The children were attacked while they were doing exercises on the school running track. The attacker was standing nearby and used a hammer-like weapon to hit the children’s skulls one by one, before he was stopped by a teacher.”

A doctor at the hospital posted on social media: “The mayor today came to the hospital to wait with us while the children were being medically treated. We have paused several operations to save all the children.”

In recent years, China has seen a spate of knife attacks on schoolchildren. In October last year, a 39-year-old woman was detained on suspicion of stabbing 14 children at a kindergarten in Chongqing.

Two children were also stabbed to death outside a Shanghai kindergarten in June, while nine children died in a knife attack at a school in Shaanxi province in April.

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