Seven students dead, 12 injured in stabbing attack in Shaanxi Province

Seven middle school students were reportedly stabbed to death and 12 more were injured by a knife-wielding man in an attack outside a school in Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province, on April 27.

According to a statement (in Chinese) released by the authorities of Mizhi, the tragedy occurred on Friday at around 6:10 p.m. local time when students of the Mizhi No.3 Middle School were heading home after school.

Photos circulating online showed students’ bodies lying on the streets covered in blood and local police officers arresting the attacker on the scene.

The suspect has been taken into custody and his identity was revealed as a 28-year-old man surnamed Zhao who resides in Mizhi County. The injured students, nine girls and three boys, have all been sent to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment. No information was given regarding how severe their injuries were.

Among the seven dead students, five were female and two were male.

The suspect confessed during preliminary police interrogation that the stabbing was a revenge attack on students from the middle school, where he studied and was bullied by his classmates.

After Mizhi County hospital issued an urgent notice (in Chinese) calling for blood donations from people with blood type AB, hundreds of people flooded into (in Chinese) Mizhi to offer assistance.