A driver has hit children with a car near an elementary school in Beijing

BEIJING (AP) — A driver hit an unknown number of children with their car near an elementary school in an outlying district of Beijing, police and media reports said Thursday.

It wasn’t immediately clear if it was another case of a driver intentionally running into people in China.

A short statement from police in Beijing’s Miyun district described the cause only as “improper operation” of the vehicle. The statement said it happened near the intersection of two streets, but didn’t mention the nearby school or whether children were among the victims.

Online maps show that Miyun No. 1 Elementary School is just north of the intersection. Miyun is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of central Beijing.

Nearby shop owners told news outlet Caixin that several children had been injured, and a hospital told the outlet that it and one other hospital was treating some of the children. It wasn’t clear if any had died.

There have been several recent cases in China of drivers hitting people, often outside schools, as well as knife attacks on crowds. Police have previously said that the attackers were upset or depressed and taking out their anger on random targets.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping made the issue a priority after a particularly deadly case in November that killed 35 people in Zhuhai, a city on China’s southern coast.

Since then, reports about the attacks have been censored, in an apparent attempt to prevent copycat crimes. Photos of the aftermath Thursday were quickly removed from social media sites and comments on what had happened were taken down.