Eight people were killed and 17 others injured Saturday in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China, and the suspect — a former student — has been arrested, police said.
The attack took place in the evening at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu province, police in Yixing said in a statement, confirming the toll.
Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year but had failed his exams.
“He returned to the school to express his anger and commit these murders,” police said, adding that the suspect had confessed.
The statement said that the suspect was also likely motivated by “dissatisfaction with internship compensation.” The police investigation into the attack is ongoing.
Violent knife crime is not uncommon in China, where firearms are strictly controlled, but attacks with such a high death toll are relatively rare.
Earlier this week, a 62-year-old man killed 35 people and injured more than 40 others when he rammed his small SUV into a crowd in the southern city of Zhuhai.
There has been a spate of other attacks in recent months.
In October, in Shanghai, a man killed three people and injured 15 others in a knife attack at a supermarket.
And the month before, a Japanese schoolboy was fatally stabbed in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
