Chinese children stabbed | China terrorist attack

FOUR Chinese primary school pupils were stabbed to death in the southern region of Guangxi yesterday, state media said.

Girl is carried by relatives out of the school gate after stampede. Picture: Reuters

The incident came as six primary pupils aged under 11 died in a stampede in a school in Kunming, Yunnan, after some pupils playing with two mattresses blocked a busy stairwell, causing panic. Twenty-six children were injured.

After the Guangxi knife attack, police launched a manhunt for the assailant, a middle-aged man, state news agency Xinhua said. He attacked the children as they were on their way to school. Three children died at the scene and one died later at a nearby hospital.

The attack came less than a month after a man killed three children at another Chinese primary.

There have been a series of attacks on schools and children in recent years, fuelling calls for improved security.

In May, a man stabbed and injured eight pupils in a primary in Hubei.

In December 2012, a man stabbed and injured 23 children in a village school in Henan.

50 dead, 54 injured in China terrorist attack

explosions in China have killed 50 people, including 40 assailants, in the far western region of Xinjiang, in what officials yesterday said was a severe terrorist attack.

The incident happened on Sunday and was originally ­reported by regional authorities as explosions in Luntai county which had killed two people and injured many others.

The news service Tianshan Net said bombs exploded at two police stations, a market and a store.

It said the attack killed two police officers, two police assistants and six bystanders, and that 54 others were injured. And it said police had taken swift action, with 40 assailants being either shot dead or dying in the explosions.

Police captured two attackers and an investigation found that Maimaiti Tuerxun, a man who was fatally shot, was responsible for the attack, Tianshan Net said.

Ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, home of the Muslim Uighur ­minority group, have killed more than 300 people in the past 18 months.

Chinese authorities have blamed the unrest on foreign-influenced terrorists seeking a separate state. Many Muslim Uighurs bristle under Beijing’s heavy-handed restrictions on their religious life and resent the influx of the Chinese Han majority into their homeland.

On Tuesday, a court gave a life sentence to an Uighur scholar who has criticised China’s ethnic policies and sought to reduce tensions between Uighurs and the Han majority. The court found Professor Ilham Tohti guilty of separatism – a charge which can carry a death sentence – saying he incited ethnic hatred and instigated violence.

Authorities have also launched a one-year crackdown on terrorism in Xinjiang, and Chinese state media applauded Tohti’s guilty verdict as a victory in that campaign.

Academics and human rights advocates say the crackdown could further radicalise the ­Uighur people and result in more ­violence.