10 children killed in Kunming school stampede, Guangxi knife attack

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10 children killed in Kunming school stampede, Guangxi knife attack

Six primary schoolchildren died in a stampede in Kunming while four were stabbed to death by a man in the neighbouring province earlier on Friday

PUBLISHED : Friday, 26 September, 2014, 7:56pm
UPDATED : Friday, 26 September, 2014, 11:24pm

Nectar Gan [email protected]

Police stand guard at a school gate blocked by people after a stampede in a school in Kunming. Photo: AFP

Six primary school pupils were trampled to death on campus and another four were murdered on their way to school in two separate incidents in the country’s southwest yesterday, adding to mounting concerns over child safety.

In Kunming, Yunnan province, six children were killed and 22 injured in a stampede at around 2.30pm at Mingtong Primary School, Xinhua reported.

The authorities were still investigating the case, and had not determined the stampede’s cause.

Police inspect in the school.

According to the Yunnan Information News, pupils were coming out of a building after lunch when some of them were started hitting a mattress. A pupil told the newspaper that the mattress fell to the ground and caused the stampede.

China National Radio reported that the incident might have been caused by a bed that collapsed and fell on the children as they played during their lunch break.

The injured students were sent to two local hospitals, two of them in a serious condition.

Kong Weizhao, a legal expert in juvenile protection, said the incident raised grave concerns about the safety of children and the education authorities should be held accountable.

“The government has clearly limited class size to 45 but mainland schools often enrol up to 70 per class, especially among key schools, which makes stampedes a common problem on overcrowded campus,” Kong said.

In neighbouring Guangxi province, four schoolboys, aged between eight and 11 years, were stabbed to death on their way to school in Pingshan near the border with Vietnam early yesterday morning. Three of the boys died at the scene and one died later in hospital. Police were searching for a 56-year-old suspect and offered a reward of 20,000 yuan (HK$25,200) for information on his whereabouts.

Injuries have been sent to the hospital after a stampede in a school in Kunming, Yunnan.

Professor Chu Zhaohui , a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said by tighter campus security alone was not enough to prevent violent attacks on school children. “It is a larger social problem. The attackers are often victims of social inequality and injustice. They have many problems and are under huge mental stress,” Chu said.

Additional reporting by Mimi Lau