8 students killed in Chinese elementary school attack

BEIJING – An attacker killed eight students and injured two others at an elementary school in central China on the first day of the new semester, police said Tuesday.

The attack occurred around 8 a.m. Monday in Chaoyangpo village of Enshi city in Hubei province, Enshi police said in a statement.

The suspect is a 40-year-old man surnamed Yu, who is in custody and being investigated. How the children were attacked was not disclosed. The motive for the attack was unclear.

According to the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly, which cited staff from Hubei prison, the suspect was released last June after serving his sentence for attempted murder.

In June last year, two children were stabbed to death by a man outside an elementary school in Shanghai.

In April last year, nine were killed and more than a dozen injured outside a middle school in northwestern Shaanxi province by an attacker who allegedly was a former pupil seeking revenge for having been bullied.