11 wounded in China knife attack blamed on mentally ill man

BEIJING – A reportedly mentally ill man attacked morning commuters with a knife in southern China on Thursday, wounding 11 people, including students, police reported.

The Ji’an city police wrote on the microblog that the attacker was immediately tackled by police and onlookers. He was identified as 33-year-old Guo Kaibing, whom his family said had a history of mental illness, police said.

None of the wounded suffered life-threatening injuries, they said.

The attack is the latest in a string of mass stabbings around the country blamed on people with mental illnesses or bearing grudges against individuals or society.

Firearms are tightly controlled in China, with private ownership illegal, while knives are mostly unregulated.

In December, an attacker with a knife who tried to hijack a bus killed five people and wounded 21, while in March, nine were killed in an attack outside a middle school allegedly carried out by a former pupil seeking revenge for having been bullied.

Homemade explosives and flammable liquids have also been used in mass attacks.