Man burns himself in latest China school attack-Deadly school attacks in China

A student is seen recovering at a hospital following an attack the day before by a knifeman at his primary school


The primary school in Leizhou, Guangdong province, where a man stabbed several young students


A security guard stands at the entrance to a Beijing school

A farmer attacked children with a hammer at a primary school in eastern China on Friday before setting himself on fire in the latest in a series of apparently copy-cat attacks, state media said.

The rampage in Shandong province left five children and a teacher hurt but in stable condition, Xinhua news agency said, and came as schools across China stepped up security over fears of further attacks.

Before the incident, China had seen three stabbing frenzies at schools in the past month, including two this week alone, by mentally disturbed adults that left eight children dead and nearly 50 injured.

The attacks underscore how China -- which has enjoyed lower violent crime rates than the West -- faces a growing public safety threat from disgruntled individuals amid rising mental illness rates and looser social controls.



In the Shandong attack, farmer Wang Yonglai broke through a gate at the Shangzhuang Primary School in Weifang city with his motorcycle in the morning and began hitting children with the hammer.

He also struck the foot of one teacher who tried to block him, Xinhua said.

Wang then poured petrol over himself and ignited it while holding two of the children in his arms. Teachers pulled the children to safety and the man died at the scene, the report said.

On Thursday, a jobless man injured 29 children and three adults with a knife used to slaughter pigs in an attack at a kindergarten in the eastern city of Taixing.

Police said the man carried out the attack out of anger over a "series of business and personal humiliations", according to Xinhua.

A day earlier, a 33-year-old teacher on sick leave due to mental problems injured 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack at a primary school in southern China's Guangdong province.

The assailants in both of those attacks were arrested and all victims were said to be out of life-threatening condition.

The Guangdong attack occurred just hours after authorities in Fujian province in the southeast executed a former doctor for stabbing to death eight children and injuring five others on March 23 in a fit of rage after he split with his girlfriend.

In response, authorities across China have ordered stepped-up security at schools, increased police patrols near school grounds, and tighter monitoring of people known to be mentally ill, reports from around the country said.

Schools in several provinces have been ordered to employ measures including full-time security staff, barring all unauthorised visitors, and devising emergency evacuation plans, the reports said.

Violent crime has increased in China as tight controls on society have been loosened in concert with the country's transition from a state-planned to a capitalist economy.

Studies also have cited a rise in mental disorders, some linked to stress as society becomes more fast-paced and old communist-era supports were scrapped.

A study last year estimated that 173 million adults in China have some type of mental disorder -- 91 percent of whom had never received professional help.

China has witnessed a series of recent assaults by attackers on schools. Many have been blamed on personal grudges or people with psychiatric problems:

_ April 30, 2010: A farmer attacked and injured five kindergarten students with a hammer in Shandong province's Weifang city before burning himself to death. The man struck a teacher who tried to block him and then used the hammer to attack the children. None of the children had life-threatening injuries.

_ April 29, 2010: A 47-year-old unemployed man attacked a classroom of 4-year-olds at a kindergarten in Jiangsu province, wounding 29 of them. Two teachers and a security guard were also hurt.

_ April 28, 2010: A man wielding a knife broke into a primary school in Leizhou city in Guangdong province in southern China and stabbed 18 students and a teacher.

_ April 12, 2010: Yang Jiaqin, 40, hacked to death a second grader and an elderly woman near an elementary school in Xizhen village of the southern Guangxi region. The attack came one day before Yang's family was scheduled to send him to a hospital for psychological treatment. He had been diagnosed with a mood disorder.

_ March 23, 2010: Zheng Minsheng, 42, killed eight children in a knife attack at the Nanping Experimental Elementary School in south China's Fujian province. Zheng was executed April 28.

_ March 2, 2009: Xu Ximei, 40, hacked two preschoolers, aged 4 and 6, to death with a kitchen knife and injured three other children and a grandmother at a primary school and in a yard in Mazhan, a village in Guangdong province. Xu was believed to be mentally disabled.

_ Feb. 24, 2008: Chen Wenzhen, a former student at the Leizhou No. 2 Middle School in Guangdong province, stabbed to death a boy and a girl, then killed himself. Chen had dropped out half a year earlier because he suffered from headaches and could not concentrate on his studies, state media said.

_ June 13, 2007: A man state media identified only by his surname, Su, broke into the Chiling Primary School in Longtang township in Guangdong and killed a 9-year-old boy with a kitchen knife. Three other students were seriously wounded. The attacker had been seen quarreling with the boy's parents in the past.

_ May 24, 2006: Yang Xinlong hacked a neighbor to death in the village of Luoying in central China's Henan province, then took 19 elementary school students hostage and killed one before police subdued him. Yang was hospitalized after police shot him when he refused to surrender.

_ Nov. 25, 2004: Yan Yiming, 21, broke into a Chinese high school dormitory and stabbed nine boys to death in Ruzhou, Henan province. Yan's mother turned him in to police after he attempted suicide on the day following the attack. He was executed two months later.

_ Aug. 4, 2004: Xu Heping, 51, a part-time gatekeeper at a Beijing kindergarten killed one student and slashed 14 others and three teachers. State media said at the time Xu had a history of schizophrenia. The attack, near the compound where President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders live and work, prompted the government to order stepped up security at schools nationwide.