A driver in an SUV ploughed into pupils and pedestrians outside a primary school in southern China on Tuesday, leaving several people injured, state media said, as worries spread over a spate of violent attacks in the country over the past week.
CCTV and other state media reported that the SUV hit people outside a primary school in Changde city in Hunan province as pupils were coming in for the day.
The incident triggered a warning by Tokyo to Japanese citizens before a soccer World Cup qualifier match between the two nations in China’s western city of Xiamen. Japanese nationals were targeted in public stabbings earlier this year.
Many bystanders in Changde were injured, CCTV reported.
Police said they were sent to the hospital although none had life-threatening injuries. Police did not provide a detailed number of those hurt.
Police said that a 39-year-old man was arrested, adding that the investigations were continuing.
The incident comes just over a week after a driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd at a sports centre in Zhuhai in southern China, killing 35 people and severely injuring 43 in the deadliest mass attack in China in a decade. Video clips circulating on Chinese social media on Tuesday showed children running into the Changde school compound, shouting: “Help!”
One clip showed a compact, white SUV stopped beyond the school entrance. At least five people, including a pupil with a backpack, were lying on the path taken by the vehicle, in a narrow street in front of the school, the videos showed.
Someone could be heard shouting, “Call the police” as a man is surrounded by a crowd and apparently beaten with sticks and rods.
A separate clip shows a man handcuffed and held down on wet cement by a figure in uniform.
The location where the videos were shot matched the reported location of the crash at the primary school for children aged between 6 and 12 years.
China’s top prosecutors met on Tuesday to discuss sentencing for “major vicious and extreme crimes”, as well as those that endanger public security, a statement from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate said.
“The hand of ‘strictness’ can never be loosened,” said Ying Yong, the procurator-general, in the Weibo post. “We must be resolute and determined and punish crimes severely and quickly in accordance with the law to provide a strong deterrent.”
There was no indication that Japanese citizens were targeted in the incidents this week and last week, but Tokyo warned Japanese nationals in China to keep their voices down when speaking in Japanese in public and to avoid going out at night.
In September, an assailant killed a pupil at a Japanese school in southern China and in June, a man killed a Chinese national who defended a Japanese mother and her child from an assailant who targeted a bus used by a Japanese school.
Videos on Weibo before the World Cup qualifier showed dozens of Chinese fans in red jerseys shouting at and crowding around a Japan supporter in blue who was escorted by several security guards towards the stadium.
Before the game, an announcer read out a letter from the organisers to supporters: “Respect the right of other spectators to watch the game, do not crowd, do not push, and avoid conflicts.”
Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a regular briefing that Japan would “continue to monitor the security situation in China and do our utmost to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals”.
At a regular foreign ministry news conference, China reassured the safety of “all foreigners” in the country.
Police blamed last week’s Zhuhai deaths on a male driver angry at his divorce settlement. Days later, a former student went on a stabbing rampage at a vocational college in eastern China’s Wuxi, killing eight people.
In both cases, little information was released by police. The lack of detailed disclosures by authorities has stirred discussion on Chinese social media, much of it quickly censored, about a rise in economic and societal pressure and the mental health resources available to deal with it.
Including the Wuxi attack, there have been at least seven high-profile knife attacks this year across China.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A driver in an SUV plowed into students and pedestrians outside a primary school in southern China leaving several people injured, state media said, as worries spread over in the country over the past week https://t.co/X7S6johsuc pic.twitter.com/8ngkZHNK62
China’s crime statistics show rates of violent crime much lower than the global average. Trending online discussion topics over the past year have put a focus on diminished optimism in China for a turnaround in jobs, income and opportunity.
Cape Times