Child killed in seige of Chinese school

A man in central China hacked a neighbour to death then took 19 primary school students hostage, killing one, before police subdued him.

The violence in the village of Luoying in Henan province comes amid a series of deadly attacks on Chinese schools, mostly blamed on people with psychiatric problems or acting on a grudge.

State news agency Xinhua cited police as saying Yang Xinlong hacked one neighbour to death and injured another during an argument shortly before noon yesterday.

Yang then charged into the village primary school and took 19 children hostage. Police opened fire after Yang refused to surrender, and he was later taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, the report said.

No details were given about the student killed.

The killing follows the deaths earlier this month of three kindergarten students in an arson attack in the city of Gongyi, also in Henan. The province is China’s most heavily populated, with a reputation for bad governance, poverty and high crime levels.

Other incidents have included the wounding of 16 children and two adults at a school in the central province of Anhui in October by a man armed with six home-made guns.

In 2004, a man with a history of mental problems killed a child and wounded others in a knife attack at a kindergarten a few hundred yards from the Beijing compound where President Hu Jintao and other leaders live and work.

Local authorities were ordered in March to post police guards at schools and take other measures to boost security, although it’s unclear how widely those measures have been carried out.