Beijing — Police have detained a man accused of slashing as many as nine boys to death as they slept in their high school dormitory in central China, state media reported today.
Yan Yanming, 21, was reported to police by his mother after he tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide after the attack late Thursday in the city of Ruzhou, the Xinhua News Agency said. It said he confessed and said he acted out of hatred for the students, but didn't give details.
Xinhua put the death toll in the attack at eight, but another state-run news agency, the China News Service, said nine students were killed.
Yan broke into the dormitory at 11:45 p.m. on Thursday and "chopped eight people to death," Xinhua said. The China News Service cited a survivor as saying that during the attack, the man with the knife said, "Don't blame me."
It was the fourth knife attack reported at a Chinese school or day-care center in as many months. The earlier assaults left one child dead and 42 people injured.
The spate of violence prompted the government of President Hu Jintao to issue a nationwide order in September for schools to hire guards and tighten security.
The reason for the surge in knife attacks isn't clear. They have taken place in areas throughout China and involve attackers from different backgrounds. In the only other fatal case until this week, an attacker at a Beijing kindergarten was reported to be an employee of the school who had a history of mental illness.
A woman, right, whose son was killed along with seven others in a school knife attack, grieves in Ruzhou, China. Police later arrested the man accused of breaking into the high school dormitory and killing eight students.
Photos released by Xinhua showed investigators standing in the dormitory in an area cordoned off with white-and-yellow police tape, while crowds of spectators stood outside the school gate. An unidentified student was shown talking to a relative through the closed metal gate.
On Wednesday, a court executed a man who slashed 25 children with a kitchen knife in September at a grade school in eastern China. Though no one was killed, a court ruled that the penalty was justified because the violence was "especially cruel."
In August, a man with a history of schizophrenia killed a student and slashed 14 children and three teachers at a Beijing kindergarten near the compound where China's leaders live and work.
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