Beijing: A man was detained after a knife attack that injured three people in the Chinese city of Suzhou, including a Japanese mother and child, a spokesperson for the Japanese embassy confirmed on Tuesday. A man holding a knife stabbed a woman and her child at a stop for a school bus run by a Japanese school in the east Chinese city. A Chinese woman on the bus intervened to stop the man from getting on, and he attacked her as well. The spokesperson declined to be named, citing embassy policy.
The mother and child's injuries were not serious, while the Chinese woman was seriously injured and remains in hospital. The suspect has been detained and an investigation is ongoing, the spokesperson said. His motive is unknown. In an email sent to Japanese nationals living in China, the Japanese embassy warned its nationals to take precautions as stabbing incidents have occurred in various parts of China in public places including parks, schools and subways.
Earlier this month, a Chinese man stabbed four US university instructors and at a public park in Jilin city, as well as a Chinese person who attempted to intervene. The four instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Jilin's Beihua University. None were in critical condition. In May, a knife attack at a hospital in southwestern China killed two people and injured 21 others.
Mass stabbing soars in China
Earlier last month, two people were killed and 21 others injured in an incident of a mass stabbing at a hospital on May 7 in Yunnan province. China, where private gun ownership is illegal for most civilians, has faced a spate of mass knife attacks in public places in recent years.
In August last year, two people were killed and seven others injured after a man with a history of mental illness attacked people with a knife in a residential district in Yunnan. In July of the same year, six people, including three children, were killed in a stabbing incident at a kindergarten in the south-eastern province of Guangdong. Zhenxiong County, situated in Yunnan's northeast, borders Guizhou and Sichuan provinces and, until 2020, was classified as poverty-stricken.
(With inputs from agency)
