2 dead after stabbing rampage near S. China school

[April 20, 2010]  BEIJING (AP) -- A mentally ill man went on a stabbing rampage near an elementary school, killing a second grader and an elderly passer-by and injuring five others, a government Web site said Tuesday, in the second random attack on schoolchildren in China in three weeks.

The attack Monday afternoon in Hepu County of southern China's Guangxi region happened not long after classes were dismissed at the Xizhen Elementary School, according to a statement on the Web site of Beihai city, which oversees Hepu.

The attacker, whom the official Xinhua News Agency said was about 40 years old, was about a quarter-mile (400 meters) away from the school, chasing people and stabbing them. He was detained by police after the attack, Xinhua said, but gave no other details, such as his name or motive.

The wounded included two elementary school students, a younger child not yet in school and two other passers-by, the Beihai statement said. They were hospitalized and one was in serious condition.

The attacks come after a similar crime that shocked China, when a former medical worker stabbed eight children to death on March 23 as they stood outside the gates of their elementary school in southern Fujian province. Zheng Minsheng reportedly said in court that he had been rejected by a woman and treated unfairly by her wealthy family, and admitted to "intentionally killing" the children.

Zheng, 41, was sentenced to death earlier this month.

China has witnessed a number of school attacks in recent years, leading to calls for improved security.

Children are targeted in these kinds of attacks because they are the most vulnerable, said Liu Shanying, an associate researcher with the Institute of Political Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Some of the attackers feel left behind by society, while others are psychologically troubled and unable or unwilling to receive proper treatment, he said.

"In some places, mentally ill people are just left hanging around because the hospitals need money to take care of them and the families can't afford it," Liu said, calling for better social programs to help those with psychological problems.

"If the current conditions don't improve, similar incidents will happen again and it will be not only a tragedy of individuals or individual families, but a tragedy for society as a whole," he said.

In the latest case, the body of the dead second grader, Wu Junpei, was taken away by dozens of paramilitary police early Tuesday morning, said the boy's uncle, Chen Wenjian.

They did not give an explanation to the family, saying only, "We've come for the body," Chen told The Associated Press. He said the paramilitary police beat him and the boy's father and sister as they protested the demands to turn over the body.

It was not clear why the paramilitary police would want Wu's body. In China, the bodies of victims in sensitive crimes are sometimes taken away by authorities to prevent further outcry or protests from the families, though it's not known if that was the reason in this case.

Calls to the Beihai city government and police went unanswered Tuesday. The Hepu County public security bureau refused to answer questions. A man surnamed Luo in the press office of Beihai's Communist Party office referred reporters to the statement on the city Web site.

[Associated Press; By ANITA CHANG]

Associated Press researchers Zhao Liang and Yu Bing contributed to this report.

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