Man attacks children outside Chinese school

A man in western China today attacked a group of students standing outside their middle school with a knife or similar object, killing two and injuring three others and a teacher, state media said.

The attack on the children, who were about 9-10 years old, occurred in Urumqi, the capital of the far western Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

It didn’t give a motive for the attack or say if the man had been arrested.

The children and teacher were outside a primary school attached to the Urumqi No. 65 Middle School and were waiting to cross the street when the man started hacking at them, the report said.

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

In two separate attacks in the central province of Henan in May, three kindergarten students were killed in an arson attack and 19 primary school students were taken hostage. One was killed in the second incident.

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.