Eight students slain; attacker arrested
By Qin Yuding (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-26 23:56

A knife-wielding man stabbed 12 students in a provincial high school, killing eight and injuring four, local police said on Friday.

Two of the four students injured receive treatment in a hopistal in Ruzhou, Henan Province November 26, 2004. [newsphoto]

Eight died instantly in dorm. Four injured students were rushed to hospital on Friday morning. 

The students were all fast asleep when the incident happened at a quarter to 12 on Thursday night.

The victims are all schoolboys aged 16 to 17.

As a boarding school, most of the students, if not all, live on campus in large dormitories with a resident teacher to take care of them. They generally travelled home once every two weeks.

An injured student receives treatment in a local hospital. [newsphoto]

On hearing the news, many horrified parents came from all parts of the city to the campus to visit their children, said a local source.

Classes were not held on Friday and the school has strengthened its security measures.

The murder suspect, identified as Yan Yanming, was seized at 4 pm Friday by local police in Ruzhou. Yan, 21-year old man with junior middle school education, failed to commit a suicide after killing the students. His mother reported to local police.

He broke into the high school with a knife in his hand at 23:45 Thursday and chopped eight students to death and four others to injury, according to the local police who got the urgent report at 2:00 am Friday.

Police said the attacker ran from the school after the slayings and they received the first emergency call at around 2am Friday morning, more than two hours after the attacker broke into the school grounds and began the brutal attacks.

Authorities were also busy investigating the motive and identifying the victims.

China has suffered a series of knife attacks in schools and day-care centres in recent months.

The authorities have ordered schools nationwide to tighten security by hiring guards and upgrading surveillance devices.

Parents wait anxiously for news about their children November 26, 2004 outside the No 2 High School in Ruzhou in Central China's Henan Province as police investigate eight fatal stabbings inside a dormitory on campus. The attacker escaped and was later arrested in Ruzhou. [newsphoto]

Authorities on Wednesday executed a man convicted of kidnapping a child and wounding 24 children with a kitchen knife in September at an elementary school in East China's Shandong Province.

In August, 15 children, one of whom died from head wounds, were slashed by a janitor at a kindergarten in Beijing.

And in October, at another Beijing kindergarten, police reported that a man killed a teacher and a 5-year-old boy pupil.

Close

Today's Top News     Top China News
WTO lets EU, others hit US with sanctions         Eight students slain; attacker arrested         People need better AIDS, HIV information         Bus crash kills 25, injures 24 in Shaanxi         Anti-corruption drive to dig deeper         Graduates compete for government posts	Bus crash kills 25, injures 24 in Shaanxi       Students need support to boost their start-ups       Graduates compete for government posts       Cross-border organized crime 'a global threat'       Donors' stem cells save cancer victims       Agriculture still top priority next year