BEIJING — Continuing a bizarre series of attacks on Chinese schoolchildren, a man broke into a primary school in eastern china on Friday and beat five preschool children with a hammer before setting himself afire, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The attacker, identified as Wang Yonglai, died on the spot, Xinhua quoted police officers as saying. The five children were reported to be in stable condition in a hospital in Weifang, the city in Shandong Province where the attack took place.
It was the fourth assault on Chinese students in little more than a month, and the third in three days. On Thursday, a 47-year-old unemployed man stabbed 28 children and 3 adults at a kindergarten in Jiangsu Province, on China’s east coast just south of Shandong.
On Wednesday, a 33-year-old ex-teacher with a history of mental illness stabbed 15 children at a primary school in Leizhou, in Guangdong Province. That attack occurred on the same day the authorities executed another man, 42-year-old Zheng Minsheng, for a March 23 knife attack at a primary school in Fujian Province that left eight children dead.
Full story: Chinese Preschoolers Hurt in New Attack – NYTimes.com